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Eager to cash in on the new phenomenon of starry-eyed civilians with money to burn, Russia launched a marketing campaign yesterday to entice more would-be space tourists.
In fact, officials said they would plunge ahead in final negotiations with 10 new (but as yet unnamed) candidates, notwithstanding objections from NASA regarding the safety and appropriateness of space tourism.
Last Sunday, Dennis Tito - the first vacationer in space - returned to Earth after an eight-day sojourn on the International Space Station.
Although the millionaire banker spent most time floating around a small private compartment, munching on freeze-dried mashed potatoes, he nonetheless declared, "I just came back from paradise!" flinging wide open the door to the commercialization of space. Immediately after his capsule's safe return to the desert of Kazakhstan, the private sector company in charge of the Russian space program announced its intention to take full advantage of the publicity surrounding Tito's milestone trip.
"There is a market for more space tourism but it is not as large as we would like," a spokesperson for RSC Energia Corporation said Monday. "Now, after the flight of Dennis Tito, it may grow."
One of the people quietly waiting in the wings to capitalize on this new business niche is Dr Chirinjeev Kathuria, a key investor in MirCorp, the private company that is helping RSC Energia revitalize the cash-strapped Russian space program.
Kathuria's Amsterdam-based company has an exclusive agreement with Russia to act, in common parlance, as a travel agent, booking space tourists for about $20 million a pop.
Tito coughed up that amount and reportedly may have to dish out a bit more to NASA to cover the expense of precautionary measures they took to safeguard US equipment and personnel aboard the space station during his trip.
But even the goliath agency that put the first man on the moon may be coming around. According to news reports, NASA is drawing up a set of guidelines for future space tourists, seeing the commercialization of space as inevitable. It is also in talks with director James Cameron, who wants to be next civilian space cowboy.
Kathuria, for one, won't tolerate any space tourism naysayers.
In a recent chat with rediff.com, the physician-turned-businessman rejected the idea that sending millionaires into space for the ultimate dream vacation was bad at all.
"What's wrong with it?" he asked. "I can't see what the reasons are."
PREVIOUS REPORTS 'I Just Returned From Paradise' We Are Going To Colonise Space Reluctant NASA Clears First Space Tourist Transcript of the Chirinjeev Kathuria Chat Mir Backer's Space Dreams Stay Alive 'We Are the Wright Brothers of Our Age' 'The Russian Space Program Is the Safest'
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