Buran as tourist vehicle, some thoughts

On Wednesday, June 12, 2002, at 03:25 PM, panamabob wrote:

>
> A prudent series of meals to flush-out the system prior to launch will
> help
> minimize bathroom needs. No one is gonna starve if they miss a few
> meals of
> solid food replaced instead with liquid "shakes" . Simplifies food
> preparation on the "mission" as well.
>
> Also solves sleeping accommodations since folks will probably want to
> stay
> awake as long as possible with only a few cat naps.

How old are you? This sounds like something a 20 year old would live
with, but most rich people are much older (I'm 50, although not rich).
Older folk, particularly rich older folk, are much less tolerant of lack
of sleep and lousy food. For $1-3 million you want the best possible
food, as much sleep as you want, and no limitations on bathroom time.
>
> As far as entertainment...by cutting down to a day you also eliminate
> the
> "what to do" part of the trip. Yes, Space is mezmerizing and seeing the
> great blue orb passing below you is awe inspiring,,,for a while.

Astronauts report that playing in 0g can be very entertaining for a long
time. I don't think coming up with entertainment, other than supplying
windows and the biggest possible space to play in is much of an issue.

>
> Afew mid air summersaults, barrel rolls, and peter pan poses soaring
> across
> the cubical and perhaps a picture or two of you having a bad hair day,

Pictures, and video, is a great idea. If there's enough space, some
competitive 0g sports would be great too. Docking with a fixed-up
shuttle external tank would provide space for sports, but that's phase
II.
>

> A 24 hour flight just simplifies everything. Airliners have shown
> people are
> willing to be relatively delegated to a small space in a 'crowded"
> cylinder.

If they are going somewhere they want to go, and people hate airline
flights. We don't want this association!

>
> As far as training, not really much needed. In my eyes the months of
> training before hand is just to help justify the $20 million.

You've got to learn how to use the bathroom, evacuate from the launch
pad, get some 0g experience (vomit comet), avoid breaking the life
support, and a bunch of other stuff I haven't thought of.

>
> I'm sure a regular Reality Show may sponsor one or
> two folks per flight as prize for doing stupid things on video. A

I think there is an effort to do a reality show for flight to the ISS.
I think the producer is the guy from Survivor.

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect and
deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html