Word: titos
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...only way to stop Tito was to bar the hatch if he showed up--triggering an international diplomatic incident--or to convince Russia that the investment tycoon was unqualified for space flight. NASA tried the latter, but it was tough given Tito's background. He may not be a cosmonaut, but he is an actual rocket scientist who worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory before becoming a successful businessman. (He founded the investment firm Wilshire Associates.) He also completed some 900 hours of training in Star City, the cosmonauts' boot camp, and was deemed flightworthy by Russia's space...
Some observers suspect that the agency's formal objections were only part of the story. "The problem is ego over who controls the International Space Station," says Eric Anderson, CEO of Space Adventures, the commercial space-tourism agency that brokered Tito's flight. Some Russians agree. Said former cosmonaut Georgi Grechko in a TV interview before NASA yielded: "We have a new station, and the Americans are showing us who the boss...
...Russians weren't going to give up their rights without a fight. It wasn't only principle at stake: Tito is reportedly funneling $20 million into that country's financially strapped space agency for the privilege of spending quality time in orbit. The original plan was to send him for a visit to Russia's aging Mir space station. But when Mir took a controlled dive into the Pacific Ocean earlier this spring, the Russians insisted that he be allowed aboard the ISS instead...
...finds the whole idea of space tourism vaguely distasteful. "That," says Anderson of Space Adventures, "is a huge mistake. NASA needs to understand that what people most want is to experience space, not read about it or watch a few elite government astronauts participate in it." For his part, Tito doesn't blame NASA for its attitude. "I realize that my flight turned the clock ahead of what they had planned," he told TIME last week. "I understand their resistance...
...NASA didn't like Tito the tourist, it will really hate what's coming next. The Russians have been talking with NBC about a Survivor-type show in which contestants compete for a ride on the space station, and have consulted the U.S. companies Boeing and Spacehab about a new module for the station that could be used for for-profit research--or even more tourism. The U.S. was always able to call the shots when it had sole control of its manned space program. Now that that control is being shared, visits by tycoons and TV personalities...