Is the list of passengers going to read like a list of the worst people that are eligible for the guillotine? At least the one ones that pass a space-flight fitness test?
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That could read like “This is an opportunity to destruct test some horrible people…” 
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Some sciency group could take up a collection to send a prominent flat-earther up there for a couple days.
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Actually, in 1992 a married couple, Mark Lee and Jan Davis (married after planning for the mission was well underway) flew on the space shuttle together.
NASA was very careful to malign their schedules so they couldn’t get time alone together, and they subsequently changed the rules so that married couples couldn’t fly.
Because sex, even within the lawful confines of marriage, is something Americans just can’t handle.
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Not too insanely, I trust. Part of how ISS personnel are chosen includes psychological profiles; certainly don’t want someone up there harboring nasty ulterior motives, or someone likely to go bonkers and let all the air out.
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Must I pay full rate for my manservant too?
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So, what does one do when one wants to speak to the manager?
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I wonder how much extra it would cost to arrange for providing one of those inflatable habitats by Bigelow Aerospace to be used as my personal accommodation for the stay.
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just looking at the everest situation
first came rubbish now just people
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Given the amount of junk in space, maybe cleanup work should be part of the price of admission…
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This has nothing to do with “tourism.” It’s about opening up the ISS to private, commercial concerns looking to send their own personnel do research or manufacturing in ‘zero-G.’
Read the NASA statement again. As it says,
To qualify, commercial and marketing activities must either:
• require the unique microgravity environment to enable manufacturing, production or development of a commercial application;
• have a connection to NASA’s mission; or
• support the development of a sustainable low-Earth orbit economy.
This isn’t about tourism. You can’t just buy a ticket and go. You must be part of a qualifying project.
Some people here seem to be in such a rush to pass judgement and indulge their eat-the-billionaires fantasies that no one seems to have actually read the NASA press release.
And the rush to moral judgement is a bit late - Russia has been selling tourist flights to the ISS for nearly two decades now, beginning with Dennis Tito in 2001. They’ve flown seven people on eight flights (Charles Simonyi went up twice).
The first private commercially-paid visit to a space station was when Japan’s Tokyo Broadcast System paid MirCorp to send journalist Toyohiro Akiyama to the Mir station in 1990.
The current NASA program is closer to the “Payload Specialist” positions during the Shuttle era - people who aren’t career astronauts, but researchers and technical specialists, who nevertheless undergo rigorous astronaut training so they can function as full-fledged crew members.
Only difference is that now private industry can send their own technical personnel on commercial crew vehicles, and pay their own way.
This is not at all the same thing as ‘tourism.’ If you want a tourist flight to the ISS, you should contact Spaceflight Adventures, Inc., as they are the sole designated agents for Russian tourist flights, which should resume shortly.
(Russia has temporarily suspended tourist flights since the shuttle’s retirement left Soyuz as the only available transport (as they also did when the shuttle was grounded after the Columbia disaster).
Once the SpaceX and Boeing commercial transports become available, they intend to resume ticket sales.)
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I hear the manager is pretty active on Twitter
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I honestly think that one or more Trumps will be the first “tourists.” And they’ll get a free ride so they can do a ribbon cutting ceremony.
Trump attacks Nasa and claims the moon is ‘a part’ of Mars
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As JFK famously said, “We choose to go to the Moon not because it is easy, but because it is Mars"
— Jason O. Gilbert (@gilbertjasono) June 7, 2019
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I don’t see any scathing criticism of the rich here, just a bunch of jokes about space tourism. Sure, it may not be directly related, but we aren’t wielding metaphorical pitchforks and torches in this thread.
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Lighten up Francis
Ooooh, now that’s scathing. 
Down to dismissive image-memes already, are we?
Oh, yay!
Whatever, dude. Nobody in this thread has any hate-on for NASA.
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And I didn’t think anyone did. So, yeah, whatevs.
