Posted on 08/08/2002 11:55:19 PM PDT by HAL9000
HOUSTON, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Rock star Lance Bass apparently has landed a seat aboard the upcoming flight of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station, the president of a television production firm working with Bass said Thursday."He's part of the crew," David Krieff, president of Los Angeles-based Destiny Productions, said in an interview with United Press International.
NASA said it has not yet received official word that Bass, a 23-year-old singer with the boy band N'Sync, will fly with two Russian cosmonauts on a Soyuz flight slated for launch Oct. 28. However, NASA mission managers are preparing a training program for Bass and two crewmates -- one Russian cosmonaut and one Belgian astronaut -- later this month at the Johnson Space Center to familiarize the men with the U.S. portions of the orbital complex.
"We have heard through the grapevine" that Russia plans to fly Bass, said Dianne Murphy, a station program manager at the Johnson Space Center.
Bass would be the third paying tourist and youngest person to fly in space. He also would be the least-trained, with less than 3 months to go before the Soyuz is scheduled for liftoff.
Russia provides a new Soyuz craft to the space station every 6 months to serve as an emergency escape ship for the resident crew. The taxi crew flies back to Earth after about a week in orbit in the station's old Soyuz.
Russia has been able to pad its strained space budget by selling one of the three seats aboard the Soyuz to paying customers for about $20 million. So far, Dennis Tito, a California businessman and Mark Shuttleworth, of South Africa and London, have paid to fly in space.
"We've come a long way since the first time we took (a non-professional) astronaut up there," said Murphy.
NASA officials were incensed that Russia flew Tito in April 2001 and begrudgingly granted the millionaire access to the U.S. laboratory only when it became apparent that the agency had no choice.
After Tito's flight, the partners hammered out an agreement to guide the selection of future space tourists and had no issues when Shuttleworth joined a Soyuz crew this past April. NASA officials seemed unfazed about the prospect of waiving the requirement to be notified of potential candidates six months before flight.
Space station flight director John Curry said the most important aspect of training would be to ensure the crew's safety.
"Spaceflight can be very unforgiving if a mistake is made," said Curry. "We want to make sure they know what valves not to touch, what danger they could do .. We can train for that in a couple of months."
He added, "Eventually, we're going to get to the point where the average citizen will get to fly in space on a regular basis and that's a good thing, in my opinion."
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
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