| Try to think of yourself as being 220 miles over the Earth, going around the planet in a space station at 17,500 miles per hour. The eyes of the world are upon you as you prepare to make a historic golf shot that conceivably could travel an amazing 460 million miles. Such was the situation that confronted Mikhail Tyurin. Really, it was rather like one small swing for a man, but a giant promotional stunt ... for a golf equipment company in Canada. There were technical problems in advance of the space golf short. Tyurin's spacesuit overheated. A hatch on the International Space Station ended up getting stuck. By the time Tyurin finally hit the ball, it actually ended up being a mis-hit. Golfers call it a shank -- the ball heading off in an unpredictable direction. The Russians actually were paid what is an undisclosed amount of money by the golf equipment company for the golf shot in space. NASA has taken what might be described as being a grin and bear it attitude towards the Russian's space commercial ventures (or adventures). NASA experts think that the golf ball will travel around Earth for about three days and will then burn up.
Some insights into space tourism: Even in Russia, attempts were made to create a commercial suborbital system. In March 2002, Myasishchev’s design bureau submitted a full-sized mockup model of boost-glide aircraft C –CCI, which is estimated for launch from the high-altitude aircraft carrier M- 55 “Geophysics”. However, after a change in the design bureau top management, works on the project were stopped. Interest on the subject once again flared up in the beginning of 2006, when “Space Adventures” and “Prodea” (owned by Anousheh Ansari) offered joint operations with the Myasishchev’s design bureau to create a new boost-glide aircraft “Explorer” on the base of groundwork. But, once again the work was stalled and today, reports of all the designers, consisting of several hundreds of sheets, are left. Though, Space Adventures is maintaining that the project is still waiting in the wings.
Americans are preparing to fly over 100 km above the Earth and people are discussing even more ambitious projects. For instance, the probability of sending four tourists at once instead of a single tourist was discussed in the context of development of the new six-seater spaceship “Clipper”. However, a change in the management in the Rocket and Space Corporation “Energiya” has forced people to forget about these plans for time being. Nevertheless, this will not stop the fantasy flight. From time to time, the management of the Russian Space Agency and “Energiya” continue to remind the journalists about the tourists who fly-around the Moon onboard the modernized spaceship “Soyuz”. The approximate cost of the ticket for this flight is 100 million USD per seat.
Only time will tell whether these semi-fantasy plans will come true or not. But the American idea of setting up real space hotels in orbit is slowly but surely nearing realization. Robert Bigelow, owner of a chain of hotels in Las Vegas, is seriously thinking of extending his business into space. Two successful experimental launches were carried out, during which the technology for the setting up of inflatable airtight compartments – “Genesis -1” and “Genesis -2”, particularly such that they become an entertainment place in the future for the space tourists.
We all are accustomed to think that the study of space is linked with enormous dangers. Let us look back into the past. Only two catastrophes with humans onboard (on the 1st and 13th flights) were registered for 100 “Soyuz” launches. In two more cases, the flight was aborted (due to blow-up of the rocket at the booster stage and the failure of the third stage). For 124 launches of shuttles, Americans have lost only two spaceships with crew. From here, a conclusion can be roughly made that by flying into orbit, the astronaut is taking a risk on life with a probability of 2%, which is comparable with the risk of alpinists climbing the Everest. From the other side, civil jet liners crash on an average once in several million flights. Here, the risk on life is less than 0.00005%. To date, we do not have such statistics for suborbital launches. Burt Rutan compares this risk with flights on the first commercial planes of the 1920s, which is a hundred times safer than orbital flight.
And yet it is a fairly high rate according to domestic standards. So, no less than 30 test flights will be conducted before the first passenger sets his foot aboard WK2. And, of course, integrated testing will be done with the boost-glide aircraft SS2. And for a convincing demonstration of safety systems in the first flight, Richard Branson will fly with his parents and children, as well as designer Burt Rutan - just like in the science fiction books of the last century, where the investor and designer, who created the rocket, have flown themselves to conquer vast space. |
An undisclosed sum of money by the Canadian golf equipment company Element 21 was paid to the Russian Central Space Agency to make the first ever space golf shot. It was made in open space on the International Space Station, and was aired on TV. After a long preparation the Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin finally struck the ball ... and shanked a mishit - that awful moment when you hit the ball with the heel of the club and it goes off in some unpredictable direction.
