goutal (11/02/82)
I was reminded that I have wanted to ask this for some time by the recent article inquiring about experiments which required the presence on the shuttle of the scientist who owns the experiment. Some time ago I ran across an article that gave the weight and the customer cost of some payload or other (on a shuttle). It was a commercial satellite, I believe, so it was the open-market price (not just raw cost, necessarily), and the satellite weight was given in tons. I worked it out, and the cost of carrying a human sized payload at that rate would be about the same as a good-sized vacation, like a Caribbean cruise or tour of Europe. Strictly out of ignorant curiosity, I would like to ask: what equipment would be necessary to support a single person (passenger) in addition to the crew, and what would THAT cost, and on what basis? Surely there must be something about such a prospect that raises the cost to something absolutely prohibitive, or people would have been bidding for payload space long since (not me, mind you; I'm just a humble programmer; I'm thinking of the those folks who drive Porsches and a couple of houses and send their kids to med school all-expenses paid)! -- Kenn (decvax!)goutal
mj (11/05/82)
#R:decvax:-32500:pur-ee:3800005:000:365 pur-ee!mj Nov 4 13:40:00 1982 I read in TIME magazine lately (the issue with the catalogs on the front) that JS&A Sales Group is offering passenger space on a shuttle flight! They haven't set a date (or a price) yet, but they are negotioationg with NASA and expect to send up 6 lucky **RICH** people some time in the not-so-distant future. Mark Johnson decvax!pur-ee!mj