Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again
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Google guy gets spaced out
GOOGLE CO-FOUNDER Sergey Brin has booked his passage on one of the first tourist space flights according to the New York Times.
Brin, who is president of technology at the search and advertising behemoth, has made a $5 million investment in Space Adventures, a company which is, among other things, selling trips to the moon for $100 million.
The company's advertising literature says. 'You will begin your journey to the far side of the moon by first launching aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. Then, a subsequent launch will occur of an unmanned rocket booster.
'Your spacecraft will rendezvous with this additional system in low-Earth-orbit. The engagement of the two will provide your spacecraft with the required propellant to travel to the moon. Once the firing of the booster is complete, the two systems will separate and you will continue on your majestic journey'.
Brin said, "I am a big believer in the exploration and commercial development of the space frontier, and am looking forward to the possibility of going into space."
But he'll have to cough up a bit more cash before he gets fitted for his helmet and spacesuit. The five clients who have already been launched into space by the Georgia-based company have paid between $20 million and $40 million so far.
The Russian space agency, which provides the seats on its Soyuz spacecraft, may yet throw a spanner in the works. The Director of the agency has recently made it clear that he's not happy about pampered billionaires blagging seats on his rockets, saying "We have built the ISS not for space tourists but for serving the needs of the people of Earth." ยต
L'Inq
NYT
Tags: Google
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Money is never wasted.

It gets to pay the wages of thousands of ordinary engineers, support services plus all these peoples families and children for decades to come.

Money is a bit like energy, it just gets passed from person to person.
:-)
Google used the moon as a setting for its 2004 April Fool's Day hoax and once depicted the moon as being made out of cheese on Google Moon in 2005. Clearly, there is somebody at Google who has been thinking about the moon for at least four years. When somebody like Brin(^1) has more money than NASA(^2), well, such people tend to have to ability and will to make their big dreams come true.

^1: Sergey Brin has a net worth of 18.7 billion according to myDanwei's 2007 article on Google Inc.
^2: NASA's 2008 budget is $17.3 billion according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
there goes all Googles efforts to reduce emmisions in one self indulgent joy ride! Good job on not doing evil, again...
I'd rather see the money go into space tourism than that floating waste of money called the "International Space Station." I really would like to hear about what grand things that ISS is going to do for humanity, because the fact that there has been no commercial exploitation of space-based production makes me wonder if there's really anything useful to do up there.
The Russian space agency director may not like it, but if somebody doesn't pay the bills, they don't get to launch their pretty little rockets and take space walks, etc.

Don't think of it as pampering spoiled billionaires, think of it as providing for a more direct participation in space exploration.

The only reason NASA can afford to be so rude and officious is that they have what they think is never ending access to lots of taxpayers monies, courtesy of the US Congress.