The first space tourist Dennis Tito. History of flight

Dennis Tito (born August 8, 1940 in Queens, New York, USA) is an American businessman who became the first private person to pay for his journey into space.

short biography

Tito received a Bachelor of Astronautics and Aeronautics from New York University in 1962 and a Master of Engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, in 1964. He worked as an aerospace engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where he helped plan and control missions to Mars "Mariner-4" and "Mariner-9". In 1972, he left the space industry for finance and helped found the US investment company Wilshire Associates, and also created the Wilshire-5000 index, a measure of the US stock market. He was the first to use the mathematical tools used in astronautics to determine the risks of the financial market.

Now or never

April 28, 2001 - the birthday of commercial flights into space. On this day, an American businessman turned out to be the one who became the first space tourist in history. He paid for his stay on the ISS, as well as his delivery there on board the Russian passenger transport vehicle Soyuz. Forty years after Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, Tito showed that on space travel one can earn money, a lot of money, as he laid out a round sum - 20 million US dollars.

He dreamed of being in space since the flight of Yuri Gagarin. And in early 2000, Dennis began to translate his dream into reality. In that year he was 60 years old, and he felt that his chances of getting into space were rapidly diminishing. At that time, the oldest astronaut was Dick Slayton, who was in orbit in 1975 at the age of 51 years.

And Tito, I said to myself: "Now or never."

In June 2000, he signed a contract with MirCorp, which provided for a flight on the Soyuz TM-32 ship to the Russian space station Mir. However, in December of the same year, these plans failed, as Russia announced that it plans to decommission an aging station (Mir was burnt in the Earth's atmosphere in March 2001).

Despite the failure, Dennis Tito soon agreed again. He signed a contract with the company Space Adventures, which was an intermediary for the delivery of individuals to space. At that time, the ISS was a relatively new project, the assembly of which began in November 1998.

The sticks in the wheels

The Russian side agreed to take Tito's money and offered him a place on the Soyuz ship. But other partners in the station, in particular NASA and the space agencies of Canada, Europe and Japan, were not positive. They told Russia directly that they do not recommend Dennis flight.

Representatives of NASA at that time, in principle, did not object to the presence of a solvent customer on board an orbital laboratory. They simply did not believe that by April, Tito's training would be sufficient, since then it was assumed that complex and responsible station activities would be carried out.

The NASA press release of March 19, 2001 stated that the presence of an unprofessional crew member who is not trained to work with all critical station systems that can not respond and help in any unforeseen situation that may arise and who will require constant monitoring, Will bring a significant load on the expedition and will reduce the overall level of security of the ISS.

The first space tourist believes that his age also played a role. According to him, the elder people have heart attacks and strokes, and anything, and transporting the corpse back to Earth would not be very convenient and psychologically difficult. Therefore, NASA did everything possible to prevent Tito from flying in April.

Eight months in Star City

But Tito did not give up. He continued training in the Star City near Moscow, where cosmonauts were trained from the time of Yuri Gagarin. Tito spent most of the year there, in limbo. According to him, it was not easy. He had to stay in Russia for eight months, not knowing if he would fly or not.

In the end, Dennis's perseverance paid off. Contrary to NASA's objections, it was sent into orbit on April 28, 2001, becoming the 415th person ever to travel to outer space.

According to Tito, all dramas and difficulties are transitory, especially since the agency supported the following space tourists who visited the orbital laboratory, and was also so supportive of private space flights as a whole.

Dream come true

The first space tourist climbed into orbit, spent about six days aboard the ISS, and then landed in Kazakhstan on May 6, 2001.

His flight was of great importance, as he inspired a number of investments in private space travel. Perhaps the company Virgin Galactic Richard Branson, Blue Origin Jeff Bezos, and even SpaceX Elona Mask would not have appeared in this business, if the flight of Dennis Tito did not take place. His example showed that flying into space is available to individuals both in terms of physical training and financially.

For his part, Tito is happy that he took part in the birth of this industry, although he attributes all the merits to the account of entrepreneurs and orbital tourists who came after him. And for him, of course, the trip will always resonate on a much more personal level. According to Tito, the journey was his 40-year-old dream. The flight gave him a sense of completeness of life - everything he does extra will be only an additional reward for him.

Dennis Tito - space tourist

Tito landed in the Kazakh steppe aboard the Soyuz spacecraft landing capsule, which returned him and two Russian cosmonauts from the ISS to Earth. Dennis, Talgat Musabaev and Yuri Baturin landed at 05:42 GMT. The cosmonauts softened the fall by airborne missiles and a parachute. Three hours before that, the Soyuz capsule undocked from the space station and began its lightning descent to Earth.

In the final video from space, Tito said that he personally fulfilled the dream of his life, better for which nothing could be for him, and thanked all those who supported his mission. When the crew left the ISS, Talgat Musabaev and American astronaut Jim Voss embraced, and Voss shook Tito's hand. Then Tito and the astronauts sailed their heads forward to the "Union", and the hatch connecting the capsule with the station was closed. Inside the capsule, they turned on the power - the spacecraft drew energy from the ISS and powered the navigation computer. They put on bulky spacesuits to fly to Earth, checked the integrity of the ship and undocked from the station.

The video camera on the capsule showed the rapid removal of the ISS and the appearance in the field of view of the Earth. The capsule flew around the planet once, and then got rid of most of its weight, including a residential module with a toilet and kitchen, as well as an instrument compartment with batteries and solar panels. There was only a 3.3-ton planting capsule.

Hard landing

The main parachute of the Union was to be revealed at 05:26 GMT, before the brake motors work to soften the landing. In the last communication session with the crew, the flight control center in Korolev, near Moscow, asked Musabayev to give Tito two tablets and salt water to help him survive the overload. He did not specify what kind of medicines they were.

Flight commander Pyotr Klimuk told the crew that the weather at the site near the village, located 400 km south-west of the capital of Kazakhstan in Astana, is good, cloudy is insignificant, the wind is 3-7 m / s and the temperature is about 20 ° C.

After landing

After landing in 80 kilometers to the northeast from Arkalyk in the Kazakh steppe, the troika underwent a preliminary medical check in the mobile medical center. From there the crew was taken to Astana airport for an official meeting with the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. After a brief press conference at 12:00 GMT, the first space tourist, Musabayev and Baturin flew to Moscow. Russian space officials hoped for a trouble-free landing, so that the controversial trip of Tito soon ended.

A former US senator and astronaut John Glenn called Tito's trip on a Russian ship an abuse of the main space exploration mission . At the same time, he said that he does not blame Tito for his desire to get into space, as this is an incredible experience, but he considers this trip to be a misuse of the spacecraft intended for research.

Fears of NASA

Despite the fact that NASA prevented the flight of Tito until the construction of a multibillion-dollar space complex was completed, the trip provoked the assumption that other representatives of the elite would want to rise above the atmosphere. Among the surfaced names were the director James Cameron, the Oscar winner, who was looking for the perfect perspective for shooting our planet.

Praising Cameron for waiting for NASA's blessing for a trip to the ISS, the head of the space agency Dan Goldin constantly mentions Tito before reporters and congress in the vein of his gigantic ego and the space insignificance of the Wall Street investor. In the House Subcommittee, he said that this situation has become incredibly stressful for men and women of NASA and that Mr. Tito is not aware of the efforts of thousands of people in the US and Russia working to ensure his safety and the safety of the rest of the crew.

Security threat?

These protests hardly penetrated the thick body of the ISS, flying at an altitude of more than 300 km, where the first space tourist, a former NASA engineer, enjoyed the undisguised support of his fellow Soyuz, the polite hospitality of two NASA astronauts living in Alfa, and was Accepted into the warm embrace of the Russian commander of the station.

Filled with the sounds of arias and overtures, as well as the sights of continents and oceans floating past, the serene world of the explorer Tito was broken only by an early attack of seasickness.

During a press conference, he dismissed Goldin's allegations that his presence threatened the safety of space professionals. Tito, who paid up to $ 20 million for a round-trip flight, helped a lot of the crew.

Dirty work

Dennis Tito in space gave out food and did a pretty dirty job, helping the crew and leaving him more time to do the basic work.

It was security considerations that caused Tito, 60, to make his space trip. Yuri Baturin, cosmonaut Talgat Musabaev and Tito delivered a new rescue capsule to Alpha. The arrival of a new "Union" was required every six months, as toxic fuel on board Russian ships was decomposed and for a long time subjected to corrosion of engine parts. The old ship remained about two weeks before the expiration of its 200-day warranty period.

The agency NASA, the leading partner of 16 countries, partially collecting "Alpha", was offended because Moscow sold the place to a layman.

There would be no happiness

But the insufficiently financed Russian space program, which controls the list of passengers to carry out the mission of the Union, continued the experiment with high-flying capitalism, especially given that the cost of the ticket covered the costs for the entire flight. Many years of shortage of money, forcing the Russians to start their tourism business, pursued the space program of Moscow after the collapse of the USSR. Partly for this reason, Russia refused to station Mir after a record 15 years of its stay in orbit.

Washington paid for the lion's share of the cost of the project, but Moscow, which has an unrivaled experience of long-term space missions, has developed and built many key parts. Apparently, the US opposition to Tito's flight had political motivation.