Spaceflight participant

Spaceflight participant ( _ru. uchastnik kosmicheskovo poleta) is a term used by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA) for people who travel aboard space missions coordinated by those agencies who are not part of the crew. The term serves to distinguish tourists and other special travelers from the career astronauts.

While the term gained new promenience with the rise of space tourism, it has also been used for participants in NASA's Teacher in Space program and for people who flew through inter-government agreements such as the Angkasawan program and the Korean Astronaut Program.

Other terms used for space travelers who aren't career astronauts include NASA's Payload Specialist and the RKA's Researcher-Cosmonaut.

Background

The Soviet Intercosmos program included participants selected from Warsaw Pact members and later from allies of the USSR and non-aligned countries. Most of these people received full training for their missions and were treated as equals, but especially after the Mir program began, were generally given shorter flights than Soviet cosmonauts. The European Space Agency took advantage of the program as well.

The U.S. Space Shuttle program included payload specialist positions which were usually filled by representatives of companies or institutions managing a specific payload on that mission. These payload specialists did not receive the same level of training as career NASA astronauts and were not employed by NASA, so they were essentially private astronauts.

In the early days of the Shuttle program, NASA was also eager to prove its capability to Congressional sponsors, and Senator Jake Garn and (then-Representative, now Senator) Bill Nelson were both given opportunities to fly on board a Shuttle mission.

As the Shuttle program expanded, the Teacher in Space program was developed as a way to expand publicity and educational opportunities for NASA. Christa McAuliffe would have been the first Teacher in Space, but she was killed in the Challenger disaster and the program was canceled. During the same period a Journalist in Space program was frequently discussed, with individuals such as Walter Cronkite and Miles O'Brien considered front-runners, but no formal program was ever developed.Cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,139766,00.html?iid=chix-sphere|title=A Realm Where Age Doesn't Count|accessyear=2007|accessmonthday=September 12|publisher=Time Magazine / CNN|year=2001|author=Roger Rosenblatt|language=English] Cite web|url=http://www.spacetoday.org/Astronauts/BarbaraMorganTeacherAstronaut.html|title=May fly sometime:|accessyear=2007|accessmonthday=September 12|publisher=Space Today Online|year=2005|author=Space Today Online|language=English]

With the realities of the post-Perestroika economy in Russia, its space industry was especially starved for cash. The Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) offered to pay for one of its reporters to fly on a mission. For $28 million, Toyohiro Akiyama, was flown in 1990 to Mir with the eighth crew and returned a week later with the seventh crew. Akiyama gave a daily TV-broadcast from orbit and also performed scientific experiments for Russian and Japanese companies.

Since then, the Russian Federal Space Agency has also sold seats to a consortium of British companies for Project Juno, to five self-funded space tourists, to the Malaysian government as part of a contract to sell military planes, and to the South Korean government as part of the Korean Astronaut Program.

List of spaceflight participants

All five space tourists flew to and from the International Space Station on Soyuz spacecraft through the space tourism company, Space Adventures.cite web|author=Kevin Bonsor|title=How Space Tourism Works| url=http://science.howstuffworks.com/space-tourism.htm|year =2007|publisher=HowStuffWorks, Inc.|accessdate=2007-10-28]

imilar missions

While the following people were not labeled as "spaceflight participants", their mission roles and/or funding sources are similar to those of spaceflight participants.

ee also

*Space tourism
*Intercosmos program
*Commercial astronaut

References

External links

* [http://www.charlesinspace.com/ Charles in Space] Charles Simonyi's blog and video blog about his trip to the ISS.