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First Space Tourist Ready for Countdown

Arthur J Pais and Som Chivukula

Space history will be made on April 28, when Dennis Tito blasts off on a Soyuz rocket from a base in Kazakhstan to the newly built $60 billion International Space Station and spends a week aboard before returning to his Los Angeles home.

He's going as a tourist.

NASA, which is involved in ISS, had initially objected to his presence, saying that 60-year-old Tito did not have sufficient training and he could jeopardize the working of the space station.

American astronaut Bill Shepherd, the first commander of the space station, told reporters early this month that while he found Tito 'a nice guy', he also knew, 'space is really not a place where you can put people aboard who are tourists'. "They have to be part of the crew, even to a modest sense."

Tito's sponsors -- telecom millionaires Chirinjeev Kathuria and Walter Anderson -- strongly contested NASA's objection. They pointed out that Tito had undergone months of training in Russian cosmonaut camps. And the Russians too backed Tito's move. Soyuz was their rocket and they could fly anyone they thought was qualified, the Russian argument ran.

"It's exciting to have the first civilian to explore space," Kathuria says now. "We started conversations with Tito a year and a half ago and it will become reality in a few days. "It gives us confidence that we can continue commercializing space tourism."

But for some time late last year Tito was on the verge of losing hope, when the Russians finally announced that Mir would be de-orbited. A former space scientist who made over $200 million in the world finance, Tito had paid $20 million to MirCorp to make him the first space tourist.

Though he had given up his scientific career in 1972, Tito never lost interest in space. In the 1990s he had "played with the idea about investing in space flight," he told Space Illustrated, "but not necessarily going myself."

A Japanese TV journalist, Toyohiro Akiyama had spent 10 days on Mir in 1991 but Tito wasn't sure if the Russians would have space tourists like him. And he knew there was no way to buy a space ticket.

But when MirCorp was founded by telecom millionaires Kathuria and Anderson in January 2000, and received worldwide publicity in such publications as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Tito's space dreams kept returning. Soon, he was talking with Kathuria and his associates about the feasibility of a space flight. They, in turn, told him he could be the first 'citizen explorer' and he would fly on a space mission in the year 2001.

He would also be the first major agent in making MirCorp's grand dreams a reality: Apart from civilian tourism, the Netherlands-based company also wanted to use Mir to train cosmonauts. Medicine could also be manufactured in space, Kathuria, who has a medical degree from Brown University, said. And who knows, movies could be shot aboard Mir.

"We want to colonize the last frontier, the space," Kathuria had said. "It will be the first such exploration by a civilian company."

But towards the end of last year, the Russians were getting tired of continuing to keep the 15-year-old Mir functioning. It was costing them too much, the politicians complained. Some sources say the cost was about $100 million, others put the figure higher.

With the international financial markets shaking up, MirCorp could not raise more than $30 million; the Russians had expected over $100 million. MirCorp had plans for an IPO but the plan was deferred. "The market wasn't at all kind to us," Anderson told MSNBC.

And yet Kathuria and his associates would not let their space dreams die.

Even before Mir was de-orbited last month, Kathuria and Anderson had signed a deal with ISS to promote space tourism. ISS was on a far firmer footing financially than Mir - and there was no immediate pressure on MirCorp to cough up millions in one go.

While Tito is Kathuria and Anderson's first customer, their second will come from the NBC television show, Destination Mir. Mark Burnett, who produced the hit CBS program, Survivor, is behind Destination Mir. He announced last September they will pay MirCorp $20 million to train the winner of their show for a space trip.

This fall, at least 10 Americans will be enrolled in a training course -- like the one Tito underwent. But with one difference, of course. Millions of people around the world will be watching the CBS program.

Some day soon, Kathuria says, you may not have to shell out millions to be in space. "I am looking forward to the day when space trip will cost a fraction of what Tito is paying."

He has been dreaming of a space trip for many years, Kathuria admits. His first dream was to be an astronaut but he decided to go into medicine when at the age of 13 he found out he had faulty vision.

But Kathuria says he will not even consider the space trip until MirCorp, which could require a budget of more than $150 million a year when it becomes fully operational, starts making money.

And before he makes the trip, he would like his parents to get the view of the earth and the heavens from space. Meanwhile, "commercializing space will continue as planned."

"We are still going to build our modules -- adding value to the program since NASA is $4 billion over their budget -- so they can't build the habitation module. We will continue working with them."

With the downing of Mir, why not a new name to his company?

"MirCorp will still continue because the name has a lot of history," he says, "and is significant to the Russians and the agencies there. Mir is a brand name and pioneered space tourism. There's also the capital involvement of the original investors who are still there.

"There probably will be a different name for other subsidiaries for different operations. But MirCorp will continue because of its history."

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