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Spaceflight participant
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Spaceflight participant 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.
BackgroundThe 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.
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| Name | Nationality | Program/Sponsor | Flight | Date | Comments |
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> Christa McAuliffe
| | Teacher in Space Project
| STS-51-L
| 28 January 1986
| Killed alongside six fellow crew members in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Back-up was Barbara Morgan, who was selected in 1998 to train as a Mission Specialist. Morgan finally flew to space aboard STS-118 in 2007, but as a "teacher-turned-astronaut", not a spaceflight participant. | > Dennis Tito
| | Self-funded space tourist
| Soyuz TM-32 / Soyuz TM-31
| April 28 - May 6, 2001
| First space tourist | > Mark Shuttleworth
| | Self-funded space tourist
| Soyuz TM-34 / Soyuz TM-33
| April 25 - May 5, 2002
| | > Lance Bass
| | Corporate-funded space tourist
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| Completed training but seat on Soyuz TMA-1 in 2002 was cancelled after funding fell through. | > Gregory Olsen
| | Self-funded space tourist
| Soyuz TMA-7 / Soyuz TMA-6
| October 1 - October 11, 2005
| | > Daisuke Enomoto
| | Self-funded space tourist
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| Expected to fly on Soyuz TMA-9 in September 2006, but was grounded for medical reasons and seat was given to Ansari. | > Anousheh Ansari
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| Self-funded space tourist
| Soyuz TMA-9 / Soyuz TMA-8
| September 18 - September 29, 2006
| | > Charles Simonyi
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| Self-funded space tourist
| Soyuz TMA-10 / Soyuz TMA-9
| April 7 - April 21, 2007
| | > Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor
| | Angkasawan program
| Soyuz TMA-11 / Soyuz TMA-10
| 10 October - 21 October 2007
| Back-up was Faiz Khaleed | > Yi So-yeon
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| Korean Astronaut Program
| Soyuz TMA-12 / Soyuz TMA-11
| 8 April - 19 April, 2008
| Back-up was Ko San. | > Richard Garriott
| | Self-funded space tourist
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| Scheduled to fly on Soyuz TMA-13 in 2008. Back-up is Nik Halik. | > Vladimir Gruzdev
| | Political party-sponsored trip
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| Expected to fly in 2009. The United Russia political party may pay the estimated $25 million for the flight from the party funds. | |
All five space tourists flew to and from the International Space Station on Soyuz spacecraft through the space tourism company, Space Adventures.
Similar missionsWhile the following people were not labeled as "spaceflight participants", their mission roles and/or funding sources are similar to those of spaceflight participants.
| Name | Nationality | Program/Sponsor | Flight | Date | Comments |
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> Jake Garn
| | US Government
| STS-51-D
| 12 April - 19 April 1985
| To demonstrate the capabilities of the Space Shuttle, NASA offered a seat to Garn, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. | > Bill Nelson
| | US Government
| STS-61-C
| 12 January - 18 January 1986
| NASA also provided a seat to Nelson, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was originally scheduled to be aboard STS-51-L. | > Edward C. Aldridge, Jr.
| | US Government
| STS-62-A
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| NASA assigned a seat to Aldridge, the Secretary of the Air Force, on mission STS-62-A, the first Shuttle mission scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base. After the Challenger disaster, the mission was cancelled and Aldrige never flew. | > Toyohiro Akiyama
| | Tokyo Broadcasting System
| Soyuz TM-11 / Soyuz TM-10
| 2 December - 10 December 1990
| As an employee of TBS, Akiyama could be considered the first space business traveler. | > Helen Sharman
| | Project Juno
| Soyuz TM-12 / Soyuz TM-11
| 18 May - 26 May 1991
| Through Project Juno, a consortium of British companies purchased a seat on a Soyuz flight to Mir in order to put the first Briton into space. | |
See also
External links- Charles Simonyi's blog and video blog about his trip to the ISS.
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