| Suggested Link: | Space Tourism This week, a 28-year old internet tycoon from South Africa joins the handful of paying passengers in space --the price of the ticket 20 million US dollars. Mark Shuttleworth -- appropriately named -- is due to blast off tomorrow week, not aboard the American shuttle but atop a Russian rocket. It's one way the cash-strapped former comrades can keep their program going. But as Moscow correspondent Jill Colgan reports, it's merely the dawn of a whole new era of mass travel in space. |
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| Marching band | Music | 02:00 |
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| Colgan: It’s enough to make old Stalin turn in his grave - two Cold War enemies, the original space race rivals – walking side by side. | 02:08 |
| Frank Culbertson, flanked by Russian cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin | American astronaut Frank Culbertson, flanked by Russian cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin – back from a flight to the International Space Station. | 02:21 |
| Yuri Gagarin statue | This ritual comes after each successful mission - flowers laid at the feet of the very first spaceman, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. | 02:39 |
| Archival: Gagarin footage | Ever since Gagarin blasted his way into the history books in 1961, space travel has been the exclusive preserve of an elite -- military fliers, scientists, perhaps the odd ring-in. | 02:54 |
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| But a new era is fast approaching; the era of the paying customer, and the corporate sponsor. |
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| Sietzen | Sietzen: This is just another place to do business. So if they can come up with agreements to put a McDonalds on board the international space station, I say, let the process begin. Let the marketplace determine who plays and who is present. | 03:20 |
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| Shuttleworth | Shuttleworth: To be totally frank about it, I think the Russian aerospace industry will be aggressive in pursuing every opportunity that presents itself. I think that’s, that’s a good thing. | 03:37 |
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| Star City | Colgan: Star City, highly secretive and, until the collapse of the Soviet Union, impenetrable. | 04:21 |
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| Colgan: Training centre for Russia’s cosmonauts and their secluded home – it’s where old cosmonauts see out their days. | 04:31 |
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| Colgan: But the glory days here are long gone – and Star City shines no more. | 04:41 |
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| A lot has changed in the 40 years since Yuri Gagarin made his historic flight. These days, both the Russians and the Americans are scrambling for enough money to keep their space dreams alive. | 04:51 |
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| So the next space race won't be about national pride like the last one, it'll be about making money. And the Russians, it seems, are set to achieve another first, with their vision for mass tourism in space. | 05:05 |
| Sergei Gorbunov | Gorbunov: The more money the State Space Agency makes, the less money it will demand from the State. | 05:21 |
| Georgi Grechko | Grechko: This is not done through great wisdom, but because of poverty and the Russian-style market economy. We take everything to extremes. Communism was a beautiful idea – but we had to go as far as mass executions. | 05:36 |
| Space Tourist - Werner Schaeppi | Colgan: Meet Space Tourist Werner Schaeppi, an executive banker from Zurich – on his fifth visit to Star City. | 06:03 |
| Schaeppi | Schaeppi: I want to see the earth from space, that’s my dream, that’s why I want to go there and want to see the stars very close. | 06:14 |
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| Colgan: Werner has no immediate plans for space travel - the price tag for a flight is at least 20 million US dollars. That’s well outside a banker’s salary so Werner just pays for space ‘training’. | 06:28 |
| Schaeppi | Schaeppi: If I feel bad, I just leave it and the centrifuge will stop. | 06:43 |
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| Colgan: Today’s little exercise in the Centrifuge cost him more than two thousand US dollars. |
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| Controller: Stay quiet because your heart rate is a little bit high and blood pressure also. Schaeppi: I know, yeah. Controller: Relax. | 07:02 |
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| Colgan: It’s over in a matter of minutes. |
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| Colgan: How are you feeling? Schaeppi: Very good, no problem, yes. Colgan: How was it? Schaeppi: Oh less than I expected, you know. | 07:34 |
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| Colgan: He’s already spent a small fortune – but is prepared to part with much more. The Russians are promising he too will be soon be able to afford his fantasy flight. | 07:41 |
| Schaeppi | Schaeppi: Let’s say I’m not flying business class to come over here. I save for other things. I don’t have a family to support, so I spent about 50 thousand dollars, I save for my money like somebody saving for a holiday to go to Australia or somewhere. | 07:55 |
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| Colgan: So it’s money well spent? Schaeppi: Yes of course. I never thought I spent one dollar too much for it. |
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| Shuttleworth | Colgan: What day did you start training? Shuttleworth: A very good day indeed – I can’t remember exactly when, I had about three weeks of medical training, medical certification, which was very tough, and that was based in Moscow. | 08:22 |
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| Colgan: And then there are those, who can afford the 20 million dollars, now. 28-year-old South African Mark Shuttleworth will be the first African in space, spending some of the millions he made on the Internet business that grew from his parents’ garage. | 08:36 |
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| Colgan: So what functions will you be performing in here? Shuttleworth: This is the living quarters; there are two cabins in here. I won’t have a cabin, Cabin is for the station crew – but the visiting crew will spend most of our time in here – this is the dining room table. That's the toilet. | 08:52 |
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| Colgan: Looks pretty small, I’ve got to say. |
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| Shuttleworth: Oh this is a very neat piece of technology – if you stand over there you’ll see a big silver knob. Just unscrew that. And lift. Colgan: Fantastic. Shuttleworth: So that’s a dining room table for six. | 09:08 |
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| Colgan: He’s disarmingly laid back – but not to be confused with the garden-variety space tourist. Whether it’s wrangling with a space suit in zero gravity or taking module training in Russian, it’s done with intense focus. | 09:24 |
| Shuttleworth SUPER: Mark ShuttleworthSpace Tourist | Shuttleworth: I get very frustrated by the Space Tourist label, because I think the team that’s working with me on this and I, are trying to achieve a tremendous amount that isn’t all captured in the tourist label. Having said that, absolutely, this is for me the most incredible experience, an experience that I’ve wanted as long as I can remember, as long as I’ve known space existed. As long as I’ve known it was out there, I’ve wanted to be part of it. | 09:40 |
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| Colgan: Mark Shuttleworth will spend 10 days in space, travelling by capsule to the International Space Station and staying on board before returning. He’ll undertake a series of experiments on behalf of South Africa’s scientific community. Yet even this doesn’t convince his detractors. | 10:05 |
| Grechko | Grechko: In ten or twenty years there will be special space stations for tourists, maybe they will fly to the Moon, but now it is too early in my opinion because this is an irrational use of space just for tourists. | 10:25 |
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| Colgan: Georgi Grechko rightly takes his place in Russian space history. The first man to complete two space station missions – the flight engineer made three space forays in all. He was three times awarded the Order of Lenin and twice made a Hero of the Soviet Union. | 10:45 |
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| Grechko: You see, putting it simply, it’s just beautiful. My longest flight was 96 days which beat the American record of 83 days – and for all of these 96 days, one could sit in front of the porthole and admire the earth. It’s so beautiful. Very small, but very beautiful and diverse. | 11:05 |
| Space training | Colgan: Russians learn to view their cosmonauts as super-heroes – to see space travel as a noble cause. | 11:33 |
| Stealth fighter | Georgi Grechko insists there is still too much to learn about space and what it can do for mankind, to waste seats on tourists. | 11:47 |
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Grechko | Grechko: It’s the same as taken the latest aircraft, like a stealth fighter, that costs a billion dollars and using it for tourist rides. Is it possible? Yes it is. Why not charge them for the ride? But is this what the stealth fighter was made for? It’s the same thing here. Why use it so stupidly if so many new discoveries are yet to be made there. | 12:01 |
| Rocket launch | Colgan: Neither the Russians nor the Americans can afford to make space exploration the priority it once was. | 12:49 |
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| NASA is grappling with a five billion dollar budget blow- out and will reduce space shuttle flights. | 13:01 |
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| The Russians would have no space flights if they weren’t earning money privately. | 13:17 |
| Gorbunov | Gorbunov: This is why commercialisation is a very positive factor. I see no harm in it at all. What’s so bad about taking 30 or 40 million dollars off the taxpayers’ shoulders? This money can be used for other social needs – and a country as big as Russia should not be without a space program either. | 13:28 |
| Space Shuttle “Challenger” | Colgan: Opponents of space tourism cite safety as their main objection. No one who saw the Challenger flight of 1986 can forget the shock of seeing it explode, killing all on board, including the first civilian, teacher Christa McAuliffe. | 13:54 |
| Grechko | Grechko: We should not be in a hurry. The Americans hurried to send a woman teacher into space – why did they kill her? When WE go into space we know what risks we are taking – but why did she have to die? These space games were just started before time, that’s all. Now they want to kill tourists –it may happen, but what for? | 14:22 |
| Gorbunov | Gorbunov: The criticism is unfounded. First of all every candidate undergoes the full training, starting from a medical check to the rehearsal of their stay in orbit in the space station. | 14:47 |
| Space craft | Music |
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| Colgan: And this is what the Russians have in mind. A reusable space craft for sub-orbital flights into space – capable of taking one pilot and two passengers. | 15:06 |
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| Unveiling the prototype just weeks ago, they revealed they had already sold the first few flights – due within 2 years. | 15:21 |
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| The price tag, 100 000 US dollars a ticket. | 15:33 |
| Computer flight simulator | Music | 15:38 |
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| Colgan: The Cosmopolis 21 spacecraft would be transported on the back of an aircraft before being launched into orbit, reaching a distance of around one hundred kilometres. | 15:54 |
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| Passengers would experience a few minutes of weightlessness, see the Earth from space and in theory, land safely. | 16:10 |
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| This is the space flight tourists such as Werner Schaeppi, are saving for and it's predicted to be a billion-dollar a year earner. | 16:20 |
| Schaeppi | Schaeppi: Space should be for everybody. But a few thousands, up to maybe ten, twenty thousand people that can do that in the next couple of years. We estimate that space tourism for everybody is in 10 to 15 years. | 16:31 |
| Sietzen SUPER: Frank Sietzen President, Space Transportation Assoc. | Sietzen: After five decades of space activities, it is time for this transportation system to evolve just like every other transportation system has evolved in the history of the world, just like shipping, just like aircraft, just as the flights of the airmail and the development of trucks and automobiles, space is simply another transportation system and it’s about time, we think, that it be utilised by the average citizen. | 16:56 |
| Space Craft | Colgan: The Russians see no limits to the moneymaking. They’ve already agreed in principle to a TV game show called Space Trial, run by a Hollywood production company. | 17:22 |
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| Hotels, corporate sponsorships - the sky is not the limit. | 17:36 |
| Sietzen | Sietzen: The Space Transportation Association does not believe that it can be too commercial. If they want to do or make arrangements with Pepsi Cola to put a Pepsi logo on the external tank of the space shuttle before blast off, that can be seen from five miles away, we think that would be terrific if everybody could agree on that. If you put McDonalds signs on the international space station, we think that is appropriate. | 17:42 |
| Space Craft | Music | 18:04 |
| Grechko | Grechko: Tsiolkovsky once said, “Space flights will give us mountains of bread and infinite power - or we can use them for tourists and make ten million." | 18:17 |
| Rocket Launch | Music |
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| Shuttleworth | Shuttleworth: I think something the space agencies shouldn’t forget is that one of the major reasons they have continued to be funded is because the ordinary person’s interest in and excitement in the idea of space. And there’s been a tremendous re-birth in that interest over the last couple of years because we’re now on the edges of space being accessible to every man, so it’s suddenly becoming real. | 18:42 |
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| Colgan: Is there one moment you’re looking forward to most? Shuttleworth: Lift off. That’s when you know, there'll be no returning, so yeah, lift off. Colgan: What about touchdown? Shuttleworth: Touchdown – (laughs) as they say in Russian – miagkoi posadki – soft landing. Here’s to a soft landing. | 19:14 |
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| Credits: | Space Tourism Reporter: Jill Colgan Camera: Mark Slade Producer: Viatcheselav Zelenin Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen | 19:49 |