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#20
by
Nicolas PILLET
on 13 May, 2015 20:11
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Yes, given that Takamatsu has been training with Brightman for a long time - presumably has the funds - so why would it even be a discussion about who would take her place?
Because of the word "presumably" !
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#21
by
Space Pete
on 13 May, 2015 21:08
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I doubt there will be enough time to find another tourist and ensure they are adequately trained between now and launch.
I suspect the extra seat will be filled with another cosmonaut. Although, the entire justification for this flight is now questionable.
Controversial viewpoint I know, but it should never have happened anyway - ISS is not a hotel. I have nothing against Brightman, but private individuals should not be able to have influence over the program like this.
I'm wondering if she ever had any intention of flying - or whether it was all a publicity stunt.
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#22
by
ZachS09
on 13 May, 2015 21:22
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Oh, no!! I was hoping since announcement day for Brightman to fly and she has to call it quits! That's too bad!
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#23
by
tonyq
on 13 May, 2015 22:43
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I doubt there will be enough time to find another tourist and ensure they are adequately trained between now and launch.
I suspect the extra seat will be filled with another cosmonaut. Although, the entire justification for this flight is now questionable.
Controversial viewpoint I know, but it should never have happened anyway - ISS is not a hotel. I have nothing against Brightman, but private individuals should not be able to have influence over the program like this.
I'm wondering if she ever had any intention of flying - or whether it was all a publicity stunt.
I am unclear if Takamatsu was just training as a back-up, to undertake the training, but had no plans to actually fly. There have been a whole succession of back-up tourists who never came back for a flight, Halik, Barrett, Dyson, Kostenko come to mind. There must be a massive difference in the cost of the back-up slot and the flight itself.
I too wonder if the whole thing was a stunt from the beginning, or if the money was ever really there. I do recall that the funding mechanism she explained at the outset, in 2012, was not straight forward.
It would seem very wasteful to fly an empty seat, although it has been done before. Much better to give a rookie cosmonaut, who is not in the training flow already some experience. How about Anna Kikina? ;-)
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#24
by
Kryten
on 13 May, 2015 22:54
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I doubt there will be enough time to find another tourist and ensure they are adequately trained between now and launch.
I suspect the extra seat will be filled with another cosmonaut. Although, the entire justification for this flight is now questionable.
Controversial viewpoint I know, but it should never have happened anyway - ISS is not a hotel. I have nothing against Brightman, but private individuals should not be able to have influence over the program like this.
I'm wondering if she ever had any intention of flying - or whether it was all a publicity stunt.
I am unclear if Takamatsu was just training as a back-up, to undertake the training, but had no plans to actually fly. There have been a whole succession of back-up tourists who never came back for a flight, Halik, Barrett, Dyson, Kostenko come to mind. There must be a massive difference in the cost of the back-up slot and the flight itself.
From what I've seen of Takamatsu's businesses (particular the description of SPACE TRAVEL he gives on
his linkedin page) it looks like he considers actually undertaking these kind of flights as a critical part of the marketing for them, and that he has been able to arrange advertising activity on the ISS in the past.
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#25
by
Impaler
on 14 May, 2015 04:06
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You know I bet Takamatsu could actually pay for his trip by creating an advertising campaign for Space Adventures, that's his specialty after all.
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#26
by
jacqmans
on 14 May, 2015 13:42
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I doubt there will be enough time to find another tourist and ensure they are adequately trained between now and launch.
I suspect the extra seat will be filled with another cosmonaut. Although, the entire justification for this flight is now questionable.
Controversial viewpoint I know, but it should never have happened anyway - ISS is not a hotel. I have nothing against Brightman, but private individuals should not be able to have influence over the program like this.
Please explaine, what kind of influence does not flying Sarah have on the ISS program ?
And ISS has been a hotel for many visitors in the past so kind of strange to make this comment for you, you should know better....
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#27
by
Space Pete
on 14 May, 2015 18:05
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Please explaine, what kind of influence does not flying Sarah have on the ISS program ?
And ISS has been a hotel for many visitors in the past so kind of strange to make this comment for you, you should know better....
By "influence", I mean all the effort that has been created for both NASA and Roscosmos in planning the flight, adjusting the schedule of other VVs to fit around it, training the crew, ensuring adequate logistics are present, etc. The justification for this flight, and thus all the aforementioned effort, was for Brightman to fly. And so now that she is not flying, she has just caused a lot of inconvenience for the program.
The timetable of some experiments has undoubtedly had to be adjusted to accommodate the VV scheduling that was associated with Brightman's flight, more food will have been manifested to accommodate her stay - upmass that could otherwise have been used for science payloads. I have nothing against space tourism, Space Adventures, or Sarah Brightman, but ISS is not the right platform for it. It's a science lab, not a hotel.
And yes, I know tourists have visited ISS in the past, and I didn't agree with that either, for the same reasons as above.
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#28
by
jacqmans
on 14 May, 2015 18:48
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I think the main reason for the TMA-18M flight is to get Volkov up to ISS and Padalka down,and that is all because of the one year mission NASA wanted.... a tourist seat was available and Sarah took it, ESA is also flying an astronaut, that seat became available also, and had it not been fot the UK goverment to spent more pounds on spaceflight Peake would fly the mission... a mission in your point of view we should not fly.... The soyuz would have flown anyway with a normal rotation crew in September, no schedule is changed because of this flight....
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#29
by
Nicolas PILLET
on 14 May, 2015 18:48
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The justification for this flight, and thus all the aforementioned effort, was for Brightman to fly.
As far as I know, the justification for this flight is to bring a new Soyuz to the (Almost-)One-Year Expedition...
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#30
by
Steve G
on 14 May, 2015 23:33
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Fundamentally, I don't see any justification in flying tourists to the ISS. It should be for professional space crew only. So much taxpayers dollars were spent on building that wonderful laboratory, so let's give the opportunity to the international partners to fly one of their professional crew on a short duration flight. BTW, I am a Sarah Brightman fan.
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#31
by
Star One
on 15 May, 2015 07:12
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Fundamentally, I don't see any justification in flying tourists to the ISS. It should be for professional space crew only. So much taxpayers dollars were spent on building that wonderful laboratory, so let's give the opportunity to the international partners to fly one of their professional crew on a short duration flight. BTW, I am a Sarah Brightman fan.
What the Russians do with that vehicles is there affair and if they want to provide seats to tourists I don't see why they shouldn't. Also such passengers often fire public interest in ISS & its operations. It can't just be all about science but has to include other elements like public outreach as well.
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#32
by
Patrickb
on 15 May, 2015 12:04
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Tass reports that Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev or another young cosmonaut may fly onboard the Soyuz spacecraft instead of British singer Sarah Brightman if no new space tourist shows up in the coming days.
http://tass.ru/en/non-political/794579
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#33
by
asmi
on 15 May, 2015 13:04
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Also such passengers often fire public interest in ISS & its operations. It can't just be all about science but has to include other elements like public outreach as well.
This. Even a single tourist generates more positive PR for ISS that all NASA can do in years. People suggesting "ISS is for science" need to keep in mind who picks up the bill for all this. And with their stance being what it is, they should not be surprised that politicians at large don't care about space - this is because their constituents don't know anything about what's going up there.
I'd say anything that can give ISS (and space exploration in general) positive PR should be high on any space agency's todo list.
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#34
by
hektor
on 19 May, 2015 06:49
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The issue here is that you got all the inconvenience and none of the positive PR.
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#35
by
notsorandom
on 19 May, 2015 17:31
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Also such passengers often fire public interest in ISS & its operations. It can't just be all about science but has to include other elements like public outreach as well.
This. Even a single tourist generates more positive PR for ISS that all NASA can do in years. People suggesting "ISS is for science" need to keep in mind who picks up the bill for all this. And with their stance being what it is, they should not be surprised that politicians at large don't care about space - this is because their constituents don't know anything about what's going up there.
I'd say anything that can give ISS (and space exploration in general) positive PR should be high on any space agency's todo list.
Granted it was CSA and not NASA but it seems to me that Chris Hatfield generated more positive PR than all the tourist combined. Someone at the station for 10 or so days who paid to get there doesn't connect with the public the same way as an astronaut responding to a kid's tweet.
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#36
by
TALsite
on 21 May, 2015 16:59
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My question is:
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
A yearlong mission or a free seat for a tourist?
Thx
Carlos
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#37
by
Nicolas PILLET
on 21 May, 2015 17:27
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A year-long mission.
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#38
by
averagespacejoe
on 21 May, 2015 23:58
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Are they going to change the patch for this mission after this change? I am not sure what the procedure for this is but because of Brightman they designed this thing with a lot of musical notes
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#39
by
jacqmans
on 22 May, 2015 13:52
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Are they going to change the patch for this mission after this change? I am not sure what the procedure for this is but because of Brightman they designed this thing with a lot of musical notes
The only thing that will change in the patch is a new name of the 3rd crew member, (If a 3rd crewmember will fly at all, that will be decided in June) if only two crewmembers, the place of Brightman will be empty. The Japanese back-up of Brightman will NOT fly.
The musical notes will stay, Volkov liked the patch that much, so it will stay. The patch is called "music of space" Russian cosmonauts and Danish astronauts can sing also
