Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [139]
I concluded with what I hoped was a challenge to the members of the committee. “As I hope you recognize by now, space tourism is not just a cute idea,” I said. “The country that leads in space tourism will reap a tremendous drop in launch costs and far greater vehicle reliability. Its exploration initiatives and its military space activities will dominate the twenty-first century. As you can see, the United States is way off course on this subject, and it desperately needs Congress to firmly set a new pro-tourism policy.”
I reminded them that many people were looking forward with great anticipation to traveling into space, and that once the restrictions and impediments were removed, people would be lining up for the possibility of a trip. “I know of two individuals, a well-known Hollywood producer and a well-known television correspondent, who are ready to go right now.” I was referring to my friends, the film director James Cameron of Titanic fame, and CNN newsman Miles O’Brien, with whom I have had the pleasure of being interviewed on many occasions.
Since Dennis Tito’s flight in April 2001, five space “tourists” have followed suit to join this exclusive orbital flight group, most recently paying over $30 million for a seat on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft to fly for a week up to the International Space Station. These have included: Mark Shuttleworth, a South African computer software entrepreneur; Greg Olsen, an American entrepreneur and scientist in the optical sensor field; Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian-American cofounder of Prodea Systems and title sponsor of the Ansari X PRIZE; Charles Simonyi, a Hungarian computer software architect and developer of Microsoft’s office applications, who was also the first space tourist to make a return trip to the ISS in March 2009; and Richard Garriott, an American computer game designer and son of Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott. I have met all of these spirited adventurers—or “Global Space Travelers” as I like to call them—and I herald their commitments to expand the human spaceflight experience. They all trained diligently for their respective flights and activities on board the ISS, and they have all brought back inspiring stories, photos, and new perspectives and insights on how space travel can be shared with more people.
IN 2002, I was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve on the Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry, where I emphasized the importance of NASA partnering with privatized efforts to develop alternative spacecrafts and rockets. Our final commission report strongly urged the creation of a new space imperative for America, and that NASA look to private industry to accelerate commercial space endeavors in the twenty-first century.
But once again NASA put off any action that might open the doors to a paradigm shift regarding access to space. I had been trying for years to transform the U.S. government’s approach to the space program, trying to get members of Congress to replace short-term thinking with a long-term, forward-looking perspective, planning for where we want to be thirty to fifty years from now, instead of getting back on the budget treadmill every year, perpetually debating the same issues regarding the space program year after year. Inevitably those issues revolved around the perennial question, “How much is all this going to cost?”
That’s why ShareSpace was (and remains) such an exciting concept for me and for others who are able to share the vision of what we could do. One of those people was Les Moonves, president and CEO of CBS television. Les and I engaged in serious conversations regarding the possibility of a Survivor-type television program in which contestants could compete in various astronaut-training ordeals over the course of the season, with the winner receiving the grand prize of a trip to the International Space Station