Who Is Taken to Be an Astronaut
In Ukraine a serious struggle took place - who will be the first space 'tourist' (a space flight participant), between the Ukrainian broadcaster and owner of the medical center Andrew Palchevskiy and lawyer and journalist Boris Filatov? Relations Manager with the astronauts of Virgin Galactic company (which plans to make suborbital flights) Lowell Faria resolved this dispute: Boris Filatov really is in a higher position in their general list of candidates for the flights than Andrew Palchevskiy, and that he would become the first tourist in space from Ukraine! Boris Filatov is known not only as a lawyer: firstly, he conducted one of the Dnepropetrovsk channel resonant program "Provincial Chronicles".
Secondly, he is a friend of chairman of the supervisory board of "Slavutych Capital" Gennady Korban, which relate in business with the owner of "Private", a Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky.
Thirdly, he is fond of extreme.
He enjoys mototravels and rode his bike more than 100 thousand miles and nearly 40 countries and last year made the African transcontinental run - from Namibia to Djibouti.
"I do not remember exactly when I heard about the opportunity to fly into space - told Boris to " Today " - I asked my friends overseas, and they helped me find the contacts of the company.
When I contacted Virgin Galactic, then sent me the condition.
In September 2009, I paid for the contract.
It cost $ 200 000.
But before you did it, I had wondered if I could become the first tourist from Ukraine, for me it was fundamentally important.
And I was guaranteed that at that time a single application of Ukraine has not yet been reported.
I also interested, if I could have a chance to become the first from Russia and Ukraine? But I was told that several clients from a neighbor country have already paid the contract.
I really wanted to get into the first hundred of Virgin Galactic.
But how much I asked for the possibility of entering into the first hundred, I failed.
In general, I am going in th list at number 145.
" THE FIRST HUNDRED.
As a spokesman of Virgin Galactic in Ukraine Vladimir Pyatnitsky said, the first hundred applicants for the fly now are made by the founding fathers of the company themselves (probably except them there will be members of their families and other members of the firm.
- Ed.
), as well as representatives from other countries, and Ukrainians are not among them.
Will one of the Ukrainians become the spacetourist among the pioneers (from 101 to 500 candidates) - it is not clear: the Americans keep the confidentiality of the participants of the flight.
But the amount of $ 200,000 cannot be afforded by many of Ukrainians.
MONEY OF OURS.
Boris Filatov, except for the lawyer profession, earns by trading in securities and real estate, and host of "Deep drilling" Andrew Palchevskogo directs the medical laboratory in Kiev.
WHAT THEY WILL FLY ON.
Of course, many people expect that someday flying on the ship SpaceShipTwo (one of the private aircraft to fly, which is now conducting the test, will hold six passengers and two pilots) will become much more accessible, but still...
THE FIRST FLIGHT...
It is unknown when will the first flight be.
When an idea has just appeared, it was planned to happen in 2008, but the start of the project was postponed and now is scheduled for launch in 2012.
But Filatov is not worry about it: "The project is complicated and I calmly refer to the fact that the date is postponed, because it is not the case, where rush is needed.
But I hope that by the end of 2012 - the beginning of 2013, as they promise now, I really fly in space.
" But now for the start of the first ever tourist flight into space everything is ready - the first commercial suborbital spaceship SpaceShip Two has been built, and October 17, the first commercial spaceport in the world "America" in the Mojave was opened.
Construction of the terminal and runway coasted 209 million dollars, part of that money was sent from the U.
S.
budget.
British billionaire and CEO of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson has promised that space "tour" will last for two and a half hours, and members of the flight for five minutes will be in zero gravity.
From the board of the spacecraft views of the Earth will be opened, which was previously available only for astronauts.
In the opening day of the spaceport show-launch of the spacecraft passenger spaceship took place, but for the first time he has to reach suborbital space only in 2012.
Shortly thereafter, passenger flights to space may begin.
SPACE FLIGHTS ARE GETTING CHEAPER The first space tourist Dennis Tito paid for his flight $ 20 million and spent in space on the International Space Station for nearly 8 days.
This happened in 2001, and since then the ISS was visited by six other persons.
The last one who made a fly in 2009 for 11 days was a founder of Cirque du Coleil Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte.
On average, they paid even more than Tito - $ 30-35 million.
The scheme is simple: tourists have been trained by NASA specialists, in the space they were launched from Baikonur in spaceships "Soyuz".
However, in 2010, Russia stopped to take tourists on board, explaining that this increased the number of people on the ISS and, accordingly, increased the load on their ships.
It is expected that in 2013 they will take the tourists again.
Around the same time, the start of commercial companies flies is scheduled.
But they are going to be limited by suborbital flight only.
So that people will visit the space for 3-5 minutes.
But the cost of the flight is much lower.
The ticket price for the company Virgin Galactic ship - $ 200 000 (and a list of more than 350 interested in).
Their direct competitors - the company Armadillo Aerospace - has tickets cost about $ 102 000 and more than a hundred applicants.
The company Space Adventures - the one that worked with clients for orbital flights to the ISS is going to run Tourists into space too.
They claimed the price of a flight - also $ 102 000.
They have been at least nine clients who have confirmed their desire to fly into space.
Among them are several former astronauts.
Till now the flights of space tourists were safe: all of 7 travellers are safe and sound.
FIVE MINUTES OF WEIGHTLESSNESS The first cosmonaut of Ukraine Leonid Kadenyuk said: "Flying to the space station, to a height of 300-400 thousand km - is very interesting.
What you see there is worth millions, it's a different world! But to make a suborbital flight, where our tourists are going to - it means to fly to orbit the Earth, at 100-110 thousand miles, and turn back.
In principle, it will be considered as an enter into space and is also interesting to see Earth from there.
But they will be in a state of weightlessness about five minutes and fly back immediately, and the entire flight will take a couple of hours.
Speed will be significantly less than is needed to move around the Earth (about 8 km / sec.
) and there will no strong loading on the body.
"
Secondly, he is a friend of chairman of the supervisory board of "Slavutych Capital" Gennady Korban, which relate in business with the owner of "Private", a Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky.
Thirdly, he is fond of extreme.
He enjoys mototravels and rode his bike more than 100 thousand miles and nearly 40 countries and last year made the African transcontinental run - from Namibia to Djibouti.
"I do not remember exactly when I heard about the opportunity to fly into space - told Boris to " Today " - I asked my friends overseas, and they helped me find the contacts of the company.
When I contacted Virgin Galactic, then sent me the condition.
In September 2009, I paid for the contract.
It cost $ 200 000.
But before you did it, I had wondered if I could become the first tourist from Ukraine, for me it was fundamentally important.
And I was guaranteed that at that time a single application of Ukraine has not yet been reported.
I also interested, if I could have a chance to become the first from Russia and Ukraine? But I was told that several clients from a neighbor country have already paid the contract.
I really wanted to get into the first hundred of Virgin Galactic.
But how much I asked for the possibility of entering into the first hundred, I failed.
In general, I am going in th list at number 145.
" THE FIRST HUNDRED.
As a spokesman of Virgin Galactic in Ukraine Vladimir Pyatnitsky said, the first hundred applicants for the fly now are made by the founding fathers of the company themselves (probably except them there will be members of their families and other members of the firm.
- Ed.
), as well as representatives from other countries, and Ukrainians are not among them.
Will one of the Ukrainians become the spacetourist among the pioneers (from 101 to 500 candidates) - it is not clear: the Americans keep the confidentiality of the participants of the flight.
But the amount of $ 200,000 cannot be afforded by many of Ukrainians.
MONEY OF OURS.
Boris Filatov, except for the lawyer profession, earns by trading in securities and real estate, and host of "Deep drilling" Andrew Palchevskogo directs the medical laboratory in Kiev.
WHAT THEY WILL FLY ON.
Of course, many people expect that someday flying on the ship SpaceShipTwo (one of the private aircraft to fly, which is now conducting the test, will hold six passengers and two pilots) will become much more accessible, but still...
THE FIRST FLIGHT...
It is unknown when will the first flight be.
When an idea has just appeared, it was planned to happen in 2008, but the start of the project was postponed and now is scheduled for launch in 2012.
But Filatov is not worry about it: "The project is complicated and I calmly refer to the fact that the date is postponed, because it is not the case, where rush is needed.
But I hope that by the end of 2012 - the beginning of 2013, as they promise now, I really fly in space.
" But now for the start of the first ever tourist flight into space everything is ready - the first commercial suborbital spaceship SpaceShip Two has been built, and October 17, the first commercial spaceport in the world "America" in the Mojave was opened.
Construction of the terminal and runway coasted 209 million dollars, part of that money was sent from the U.
S.
budget.
British billionaire and CEO of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson has promised that space "tour" will last for two and a half hours, and members of the flight for five minutes will be in zero gravity.
From the board of the spacecraft views of the Earth will be opened, which was previously available only for astronauts.
In the opening day of the spaceport show-launch of the spacecraft passenger spaceship took place, but for the first time he has to reach suborbital space only in 2012.
Shortly thereafter, passenger flights to space may begin.
SPACE FLIGHTS ARE GETTING CHEAPER The first space tourist Dennis Tito paid for his flight $ 20 million and spent in space on the International Space Station for nearly 8 days.
This happened in 2001, and since then the ISS was visited by six other persons.
The last one who made a fly in 2009 for 11 days was a founder of Cirque du Coleil Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte.
On average, they paid even more than Tito - $ 30-35 million.
The scheme is simple: tourists have been trained by NASA specialists, in the space they were launched from Baikonur in spaceships "Soyuz".
However, in 2010, Russia stopped to take tourists on board, explaining that this increased the number of people on the ISS and, accordingly, increased the load on their ships.
It is expected that in 2013 they will take the tourists again.
Around the same time, the start of commercial companies flies is scheduled.
But they are going to be limited by suborbital flight only.
So that people will visit the space for 3-5 minutes.
But the cost of the flight is much lower.
The ticket price for the company Virgin Galactic ship - $ 200 000 (and a list of more than 350 interested in).
Their direct competitors - the company Armadillo Aerospace - has tickets cost about $ 102 000 and more than a hundred applicants.
The company Space Adventures - the one that worked with clients for orbital flights to the ISS is going to run Tourists into space too.
They claimed the price of a flight - also $ 102 000.
They have been at least nine clients who have confirmed their desire to fly into space.
Among them are several former astronauts.
Till now the flights of space tourists were safe: all of 7 travellers are safe and sound.
FIVE MINUTES OF WEIGHTLESSNESS The first cosmonaut of Ukraine Leonid Kadenyuk said: "Flying to the space station, to a height of 300-400 thousand km - is very interesting.
What you see there is worth millions, it's a different world! But to make a suborbital flight, where our tourists are going to - it means to fly to orbit the Earth, at 100-110 thousand miles, and turn back.
In principle, it will be considered as an enter into space and is also interesting to see Earth from there.
But they will be in a state of weightlessness about five minutes and fly back immediately, and the entire flight will take a couple of hours.
Speed will be significantly less than is needed to move around the Earth (about 8 km / sec.
) and there will no strong loading on the body.
"
Source...