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Top Canadian Astronauts Want to See More People on Commercial Space Flights

Posted on: Wednesday, 6 October 2004, 06:00 CDT

VANCOUVER (CP) - Brain-crimping nausea and a $250,000 price tag is worth a trip to space, say top Canadian astronauts who have started to sound like an ad campaign for the emerging commercial space travel market.

"I'm hoping it will work. Most people would love to go," said Marc Garneau, the first Canadian in space 20 years ago this week.

It will probably be years before a tourist could have a sleepover on a space station but Garneau said the mini-trips that will likely begin in the next few years will be more thrilling than any adventure safari extreme tour operators could put together.

"Extended travel - I'm talking a few days in space - that's not going to happen for tourists for a long time. But if you can get up to the edge of space for four or five minutes and experience floating and see your planet from above, I believe for a lot of people that's a very attractive idea and a lot of people would want to do it."

Garneau said British financier Richard Bransen seems to have figured out how to fly people to space for $250,000, "which is a major step." It's quite feasible the price could be driven down to a more manageable $50,000, he said.

"It's very exciting. . . Branson believes there's a good business case for it. Let's hope he's right."

That's still a lot of money for what promises to be a gruelling trip.

"You have to board a rocket ship and it has to accelerate to a certain speed and that is not necessarily the most comfortable ride," said Julie Payette, the Canadian Space Agency's chief astronaut.

"We could eventually come up with a new propulsion system that will be smoother and easier."

She said people need to understand it's still very dangerous business, but scoffed at the thought of people chickening out on the experience of a lifetime.

"People go and climb Mount Everest, people go sail alone across the Atlantic. Why not go on a sub-orbital flight and see this extraordinary planet of ours from above?"

Astronaut Chris Hadfield promised the experience exceeded his wildest dreams.

"You wonder, when you get there is it really going to be as good as I dreamed . . .

"To have a chance to ride a rocket ship and orbit the earth every 90 minutes and to float weightless inside your spaceship and every time float up to the window to see another continent float by.

"It was truly one of the few things that was way better than I dreamed it would be.

Hadfield told an audience of Grade 6 students at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre he hopes all of them have a chance to experience it.

The kids were taking part in a celebration of Garneau's first trip to space.

Astronauts living on the International Space Station even beamed in video messages of congratulations.

The Canadian astronauts are in Vancouver this week for an international gathering of space scientists.

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