CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The chances of would-be space tourist Dennis Tito flying to the International Space Station next year might be slim to none, but NASA at least publicly isnt completely slamming the door shut on the controversial idea.
"I think wed have to wait and see how it all works out," former NASA chief astronaut Robert Cabana, now the agencys manager for International Space Station operations, told SPACE.com Tuesday during a news conference at Kennedy Space Center.
| A Mir Chronology |
| Heralding what would become an exciting era in space exploration, on February 20, 1986 the Soviet Union announced the launch of its new space station called Mir. |
Tito, a multimillionaire investment manager from California, had hoped to become the worlds first space tourist with a flight to the aging Russian space station Mir early next year.
A former NASA engineer, Tito already has made partial payment on a $20 million ticket sold by the private company MirCorp and RKK Energia, the Russian company that operates Mir.
The flight to Mir, however, appears to be "no-go" for launch.
The Russian Aviation and Space Agency (Rosaviacosmos) said earlier this month that Mir will be sent on a destructive plunge through the atmosphere and into the Pacific Ocean a week after the stations 15th anniversary in February.
In a Nov. 16 interview with SPACE.com, Tito said he was working on a deal to launch aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft for a six-day stay at the new international station in late April.
Both NASA and Rosaviacosmos officials at the time said the deal was news to them.
Cabana, however, left the door slightly ajar.
The topic, he said, is one that NASA officials are not currently negotiating with their counterparts at Rosaviavcosmos. He added that the Russian space agency officials have said publicly that they have received no request from MirCorp or RKK Energia to fly Tito.
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At the same time, though, Cabana noted that NASA and its international partners still are in the early stages of a daunting string of critical missions aimed at building a 480-ton station a job many consider the most complex engineering project of all time.
"I think right now, at this point in the [station] assembly sequence, we have a tremendous job up there, and we want to have professional astronauts doing it," the veteran shuttle mission commander said.
Still unclear: whether NASA ultimately would take issue with any Russian move to fly Tito during the crucial early stages of station construction.
"Whether or not wed object or not, I cant say at this time," Cabana said. "Id have to wait and see what gets presented. Well evaluate it at the proper time when the Russians come to us and say this is something they want to do, and this is what they have worked out."
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