Blog
See what Richard has to say and keep track of the mission.


JANUARY 31, 2008
Do Not Call Me a Space Tourist!
As I mentioned in my previous post, the American astronauts I met on day two of my Moscow adventure couldn’t have been more kind and supportive of my endeavor. I have longstanding roots in the space-exploration community (both in the public and private sector) and there’s lots of serious work I hope to accomplish while I’m up in space. More on that in future posts…

Government-sponsored, career spacefarers are called astronauts, cosmonauts, or taikonauts, depending on their country of origin. Non-career individuals sponsored by private NASA contractors are also just called astronauts, or even private astronauts. What do we call teachers who have been selected to fly? We call them astronauts. Non-career astronauts sent by other countries on the same ten-day “taxi mission” as mine are called cosmonauts, such as the Korean who is flying in April. After my cosmonaut training, I will graduate with the same credentials with which any other foreign cosmonaut graduates. So I will be a paper-carrying, pin-wearing cosmonaut like any other. When I fly, a tree will be planted along the walk of cosmonauts in Star City like every other cosmonaut. However, I am a U.S. citizen, too, and when we speak of spacefarers in the U.S. we call them astronauts, so that title is acceptable, too. I will even take the word private in front of either if people wish to make that distinction. But please don’t call me a space tourist. Just because I am paying my own way is no reason to give me a lesser label. I will have worked just as hard to get there and I will be doing work I consider just as valuable in orbit. So please just call me a private astronaut or cosmonaut.

Now, what about that valuable work I plan to do in orbit? I have a few primary objectives for my mission, and a lengthy manifest of experiments and activities beyond that. I’ll get to the experiments in later blogs, but first let me state what drives my thinking about them.

My biggest hope for my mission is that I can demonstrate that privately funded human space flight can return direct, measurable value that justifies the high cost of access to space. Even as a young lad, I was regularly exposed to the critics of the space industry, who would argue against the massive expenditure needed for space exploration. Clearly, I have always been a believer in this endeavor, and I believe it has been a measurably good investment. But I believe governments should only spend their taxpayers’ money to open and prove new strategic markets, and thereafter private individuals and industry should take over.

This has already largely happened in one major area of space exploration: satellite launches. While government launch vehicles were once the sole method to deploy a satellite, as demand for satellites increased, so did the demand for affordable and regular access to space. Today, the vast majorities of satellites are private, and so are the vehicles that put them in space. I think a similar moment is approaching with respect to manned space travel. Hopefully my flight can help to demonstrate that -- and perhaps push it along a bit.

Reflecting on earlier eras, like when tall ships first sailed to the new world, countries like Spain initially sponsored daring individuals like Columbus to prove the highly risky but potentially strategic path to the Americas. Soon after, companies had private fleets traversing the Atlantic. Look even further forward, and private individuals like my exploration hero Ernest Shackleton were raising their own sponsorship monies for voyages to places like Antarctica. With these private charters, while the main goal was often that of exploration and discovery, scientists and researchers were commonly brought along to see what things of scientific or commercial value could be found in these new lands. And great rewards commonly resulted in those investments.

» CLOSE
JANUARY 19, 2008
Meeting the crew and getting acclimated

I arrived in Moscow on Saturday, January 19. The following day, I was invited by NASA astronaut Mike Fincke to join him and some other Americans for a burger at Moscow’s Starlight Diner. Mike . . . » CONTINUE READING

JANUARY 18, 2008
The Adventure Begins
So I’m blogging from Moscow, where I arrived last week for the first round of tests and training in the lead up to my October ’08 takeoff. All very exciting, though I have been in “p . . . » CONTINUE READING
JANUARY 17, 2008
Response to criticism of private spaceflight.

Back in September 2007, we started this website. Part of the website involves allowing people to ask me questions about my trip. I have received . . . » CONTINUE READING