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Som Chivukula
Well, the spinoffs were inevitable.
Nearly two weeks after California-based millionaire Dennis Tito's historic trip into space, companies are coming up with a variety of ideas to cash in on space tourism, offering competition to MirCorp, which pioneered the commercialization of space about a year ago.
MirCorp, the Amsterdam-based company that collected $20 million for Tito's visit, has plans to develop a television programme on NBC -- originally titled Destination Mir -- whose winner will go into space.
But a California-based company is adding a little spice to their space dreams.
The Space Island Group, based in West Covina, is planning to build a hotel in space where couples can have sex in conditions of weightlessness.
"There are millions of couples who want to try it and join the 400-mile-high club," Gene Myers, president of the Space Island Group, told reporters recently. "All of a sudden the world can see that space tourism is just around the corner. Mr Tito has made it a reality."
But Chirinjeev Kathuria, one of the key investors of MirCorp, admits that while their idea is genuine, it has a lot of holes.
"There's a viable market for that. But you have to remember that the only two countries to work with are [the] USA or Russia," Kathuria said. "We've already seen that NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] is reluctant to commercialize space."
Kathuria's MirCorp certainly knows about NASA firsthand. When MirCorp, which originally planned on sending Tito to the Mir space station, but was forced to change its plans when Mir was dumped by Russia earlier this year due to its age and high maintenance costs, wanted to send him to the newly established International Space Station instead, it met with resistance from NASA officials who claimed Tito would interfere with emergency procedures and had not been adequately trained for his flight.
After much hullabaloo, NASA gave in when Tito offered to pay for any damages he caused on the space station.
NASA also objected to Tito's flight aboard the Soyuz, since Russia was in the venture for financing its space programme.
Kathuria is convinced NASA is opposed to the commercialization of space.
Now that he has returned, Tito is also using his newfound celebrity status to further the idea of commercializing space.
He spoke at a special Senate session earlier this week, saying ordinary citizens should also have the privilege to fly into space, not just wealthy people.
"I think this could be done by bringing the citizen astronaut programme back into existence and reserve seats on the shuttle for private citizens," he suggested.
Despite talk that the Space Island Group is working with NASA, Kathuria feels MirCorp is the vehicle for space commercialization. "We're open to all sorts of joint ventures," he said. "But there are a lot of issues, [especially] technically. The Soyuz rocket can take only three people up into space at a time, and two have to be cosmonauts.
"You can't build something overnight. We've been in the business for a long time and it takes us 18 to 24 months to build our modules," Kathuria continued, adding that high costs were also a barrier to entry.
Kathuria cited the bureaucracy among NASA officials as the prime reason MirCorp could not work with the space agency, echoing the sentiments of many space enthusiasts and observers.
The Space Island Group is not the only company with ideas for commercializing space. Recently, eSpaceTickets.com began holding a promotion where the winner will fly on a Russian fighter jet or a sub-orbital journey aboard a yet-to-be built commercial spacecraft.
Much of the promotion is a marketing gimmick, though. Users join a buyer's club and are then sent e-mail solicitations by businesses. If users read the e-mails and visit the firms' Web sites, they get eSpaceTickets in return. The retailers pay fees to the company for sending visitors to their sites.
The drawing of lots for the ride on the jet is scheduled between October 4 to 10. The sub-orbital flight will not take place for another four years, the company told NewsFactor.com
YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO SEE: Russia markets space tourism 'I just came back from Paradise' 'We are going to colonise space' 'We are the Wright brothers of our age' The Chirinjeev Kathuria Chat Reluctant NASA clears first space tourist First space tourist is ready for countdown
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