{"id":17669,"date":"2020-06-25T20:25:39","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T12:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/space-adventures-looks-for-a-customer-to-do-a-spacewalk-after-russia-gives-its-ok\/"},"modified":"2020-06-25T20:25:39","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T12:25:39","slug":"space-adventures-looks-for-a-customer-to-do-a-spacewalk-after-russia-gives-its-ok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/space-adventures-looks-for-a-customer-to-do-a-spacewalk-after-russia-gives-its-ok\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Adventures looks for a customer to do a spacewalk after Russia gives its OK"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_570735\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-570735\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-570735\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/200625-russwalk2-630x386.jpg\" alt=\"Astronaut Mike Fincke\" width=\"630\" height=\"386\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/200625-russwalk2-630x386.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/200625-russwalk2-1260x772.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/200625-russwalk2-768x470.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/200625-russwalk2-1536x941.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/200625-russwalk2-2048x1255.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-570735\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA astronaut Mike Fincke conducts a spacewalk in a Russian spacesuit during his stint on the International Space Station in 2004. (NASA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>BELLEVUE, Wash. \u2014 Russian space officials say that they\u2019ve signed off on a commercial deal with Virginia-based Space Adventures to fly two customers to the International Space Station in 2023 \u2014 and that one of those customers would be allowed to do a spacewalk.<\/p>\n<p>Space Adventures\u2019 co-founder and chairman, Eric Anderson, told GeekWire that the company is now checking to see who\u2019s interested.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is no specific client who\u2019s been contracted for this one,\u201d said Anderson, who has his office in Bellevue even though Space Adventures is headquartered in Virginia. \u201cWe\u2019re looking for clients.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Space Adventures has talked about selling a spacewalk for more than a decade, and Anderson said some potential clients have expressed interest in the idea over the years. Seattle software billionaire Charles Simonyi, who flew to the space station in 2007 and 2009 with Space Adventures\u2019 help, has said he passed up on the spacewalk option because he didn\u2019t have the time and wasn\u2019t \u201cenough of an athlete\u201d to do the required training.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson acknowledged that doing a spacewalk isn\u2019t for everybody. Preparing for the activity would require about six months of training at Russia\u2019s Star City complex. Activities related to the spacewalk would add an extra week to the usual weeklong stay on the space station.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a challenge in terms of training,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cIt is an adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the adventure would go down in the history books as the world\u2019s first commercial spacewalk. And the view of Earth surrounded by the blackness of space would be unparalleled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGoing to space is unique, period,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cBut if you\u2019re going to do this once in your life, and you have the resources in terms of money and time, doing something different and notable adds a lot of value \u2014 and means more than you might think.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Space Adventures - a view like this\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/v--TMBCbYrA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In today\u2019s news release, Roscosmos said the contract between Space Adventures and Russia\u2019s main space company, Energia, calls for one of the spaceflight participants on the 2023 mission to go out into space from the station\u2019s Russian segment, in the company of a professional cosmonaut. Anderson said the outing would last up to 90 minutes, which is shorter than the typical six- to seven-hour working spacewalk.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson declined to specify the price for the spacewalk \u2014 or the price for a space station trip, for that matter. In the past, NASA has paid more than $80 million per astronaut for Russian rides to orbit. Unless the financial circumstances are greatly changed, a private-sector spacewalker would be expected to pay at least that much.<\/p>\n<p>The most that Anderson would say about price tags is that Space Adventures\u2019 orbital travel packages typically range from $42 million to more than $100 million, depending on the services rendered.<\/p>\n<p>For what it\u2019s worth, Space Adventures also offers a high-end, round-the-moon package, So far, there have been no takers for that, although Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos once said he talked with the Russians about it. \u201cI\u2019m definitely in their target market,\u201d he quipped at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Roscosmos announced that it signed a contract with Space Adventures to send two customers to the space station in 2021. Anderson told GeekWire that two would-be spacefliers have signed up for that trip but said it\u2019s too early to announce their names.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Windows of Opportunity\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/383308422?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Space Adventures has been in the business of putting deep-pocketed adventurers on Russian flights to the space station since 2001. So far, seven people have taken such trips, most recently in 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson said the company has had to ratchet down its activity over the past few months, due to the coronavirus pandemic. \u201cWe have not done a lot of outward marketing or outreach, because we didn\u2019t know if the whole world was going to break down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Today there are a lot more options for private spaceflight than there were back in 2001. Virgin Galactic and Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture are getting ready to offer suborbital space trips to paying customers, and on the orbital frontier, SpaceX and Boeing are making deals with partners that include Space Adventures as well as more recent entrants such as Axiom Space.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson said he was deeply moved to see SpaceX launch two NASA astronauts to the space station last month, but not just because it\u2019s something new.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe work that goes into a spacewalk, or even having two tourists going together on a Soyuz, or seeing the Dragon launch \u2014 all of those concepts, that\u2019s 20 years in the making,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not tourism. It\u2019s hard. I\u2019m excited about this, not because it\u2019s easy, but because I know how hard it\u2019s been.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Update for 1:05 p.m. PT June 25: <\/strong>We\u2019ve updated this report with Anderson\u2019s comments.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA astronaut Mike Fincke conducts a spacewalk in a Russian spacesuit during his stint on the International Space Station in 2004. (NASA Photo) BELLEVUE, Wash. \u2014 Russian space officials say that they\u2019ve signed off on a commercial deal with Virginia-based Space Adventures to fly two customers to the International Space Station in 2023 \u2014 and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[717,352,2326,493,1547],"class_list":["post-17669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-international-space-station","tag-russia","tag-space-adventures","tag-space-tourism","tag-spacewalk"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17669"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}