The company that sent the first tourists to space is about to start offering its clients an alluring add-on: a spacewalk.
Space Adventures, a company based in Vienna, Virginia, that has sent three very wealthy men to orbit the earth on the International Space Station, was scheduled to announce yesterday that future customers will be able to take an hour-and-a-half trip outside the station as well.
The price? Just US$15 million, on top of the US$20 million for the flight itself. For people who can afford US$20 million for a 10-day vacation, the extra US$15 million might seem like little more than overtipping.
The spacewalks have been approved by the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation, which provides training and transportation to the station on Soyuz rockets, said Eric Anderson, the chief executive officer of Space Adventures.
Aleksei Krasnov, director of the Russian space agency, said in a statement that space tourists "could potentially perform an EVA [extra-vehicular activity]" with a month's training, and if they had the proper "physical and psychological capabilities."
The Russians have been eager to commercialize space and get most of the fees that Space Adventures collects.
A NASA spokeswoman, Melissa Mathews, said the agency had not been informed by Russia about any intention to sell EVAs.
Fewer than 450 people have traveled to space, and the club of spacewalkers is even more exclusive. Just 151 people have stepped outside the relative safety of their craft to greet the void with only a visor to separate life and death.
"Spacewalk is the ultimate experience that we've managed to invent as humans," said Tom Jones, a former spacewalker who is an adviser to Space Adventures.
Being outside the craft when "there's nothing between you and the ground below but empty space," he said, is "incomparable."
As for the nausea and vomiting that some astronauts experience, and which could preclude a spacewalk, Jones said "almost everybody feels good after two or three days."
Warming to the idea of another shot at that view, he said, "I think if I had 15 million, I'd go for it."
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