From: utzoo!decvax!goutal
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Title: Joe Blow in space
Article-I.D.: decvax.325
Posted: Mon Nov  1 23:27:08 1982
Received: Tue Nov  2 05:27:41 1982

I was reminded that I have wanted to ask this for some time
by the recent article inquiring about experiments which required the
presence on the shuttle of the scientist who owns the experiment.

Some time ago I ran across an article that gave the weight and the 
customer cost of some payload or other (on a shuttle).  It was a
commercial satellite, I believe, so it was the open-market price (not
just raw cost, necessarily), and the satellite weight was given in
tons.  I worked it out, and the cost of carrying a human sized payload
at that rate would be about the same as a good-sized vacation, like
a Caribbean cruise or tour of Europe.  Strictly out of ignorant
curiosity, I would like to ask:  what equipment would be necessary to
support a single person (passenger) in addition to the crew, and what
would THAT cost, and on what basis?  Surely there must be something
about such a prospect that raises the cost to something absolutely
prohibitive, or people would have been bidding for payload space long
since (not me, mind you;  I'm just a humble programmer;  I'm thinking
of the those folks who drive Porsches and a couple of houses and
send their kids to med school all-expenses paid)!
-- Kenn (decvax!)goutal