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'We Are the Wright Brothers of Our Age'

When 60-year-old American millionaire Dennis Tito blasted into orbit on Saturday on a Russian Soyuz rocket, he fulfilled a long-standing dream.

But one of the men who dreamt of space tourism and formed MirCorp to "colonize space", sending Tito into space for 10 days, is unlikely to fulfill his own childhood dream.

Chirinjeev Kathuria had to give up his own dream of being an astronaut when at the age of 13 he was told that his vision was not perfect. Kathuria went into medicine, then got an MBA and ventured into the telecom business. Then the space bug got hold of him.

"But at least I have the satisfaction of pioneering space tourism," Kathuria, who is in his mid 30s, says. "My partners (including another telecom millionaire Walt Anderson) and I feel like we are the Wright Brothers of our times."

Tito paid $20 million to be the first space tourist, but MirCorp is tight-lipped about how much it is going to keep, and how much the Russian space program will get.

Although several people, including a Japanese television writer and producer, have been propelled into space, Tito is the first person to pay for such a trip. Kathuria predicts that within a decade, space tourism will cost far less, and he is preparing to take a trip too. But not till MirCorp is soundly established and has reached the breakeven point.

Tito, a former rocket engineer who made his fortune as a financier, was initially bound for Mir space station but Russia de-orbited Mir this year as Kathuria's company could not raise enough money by the end of last year to keep the deteriorating space station hanging on.

It took Kathuria and associates several weeks to switch their plan to the newly built International Space Station which is a 16-nation endeavor.

But there were snags this time too.

NASA, one of the partners at ISS, had vehemently objected to Tito's presence.

NASA officials said Tito lacked sufficient training to be space-bound and his presence could harm the space venture. Besides, the ISS was not ready for civilian cosmonauts, NASA officials argued.

But as Tito threatened to sue NASA, the Russian space agency intervened and declared that the training he had undergone in Russia last year was adequate. Tito underwent additional training recently.

NASA then gave in but insisted he would be confined to the Russian part of the space station.

CHAT TRANSCRIPT
The Chirinjeev Kathuria Chat

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