Posts: 5952
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Jan 2001

Posts: 2610
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 07-11-2005 05:36 AM               

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Philip,

Who confirmed it and when? Any official source?

To my knowledge, neither RKA nor Space Adventures formally confirmed the October option. A contract was signed, but this contract does not contain a formal flight date.

From what I hear, the decision on the 3rd seat on the upcoming Soyuz will only take place in early August.

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Jürgen P Esders
Berlin, Germany
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astroaddies

Posts: 1042
From: UK
Registered: Apr 2005

Posts: 2610
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 07-11-2005 12:35 PM               

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Issman -

Can you tell me what "unofficially confirmed" means? That sounds like "being a bit pregnant" to me - ask any adult woman about the likelihood of this.

It's not confirmed until it's not confirmed. Amen. You have no official quote by anyone on this.

The interesting site you mention is not anything official either. It's a private website which happens to have the scheduled launch date of TMA-7 wrong as well ..... and that IS already confirmed by official sources ....

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Jürgen P Esders
Berlin, Germany http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astroaddies

[This message has been edited by eurospace (edited July 11, 2005).]

Posts: 1042
From: UK
Registered: Apr 2005

posted 07-12-2005 05:09 AM            

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Jurgen

The Russian contract to fly Olsen is a done-deal. What is "unofficial" is that the US is awaiting the outcome of STS-114 before making it "official".

Posts: 2610
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 07-12-2005 05:35 AM               

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ISSman,

I am aware of the signing of the contract. The contract does specify the date of the flight. So he will fly, if he holds up medically, but when is still open.

His odds are good for late September, no doubt, but nobody has taken a formal decision as yet.

That is a pretty clear and unambigous situation that one can describe correctly? Novosti and the other agencies were perfectly capable to do so, and so can we, IMHO.

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Jürgen P Esders
Berlin, Germany
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astroaddies

Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 07-27-2005 01:38 PM               

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Confirmation:

Arlington, Va. – July 27, 2005 -- Space Adventures, Ltd., the world’s leading space experiences company, announced today that American technology entrepreneur Gregory Olsen, Ph.D. has been confirmed to the Soyuz TMA-7 crew which is currently planned for launch to the International Space Station (ISS) on October 1 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Dr. Olsen will be joining the 12th Expedition Crew which will also include NASA astronaut William McArthur and cosmonaut Valery Tokarev.

Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures, the company which organized the spaceflights for the world’s first private space explorers, American businessman Dennis Tito and the “First African in Space” Mark Shuttleworth, said, “I am extremely pleased that Greg has been named to the Soyuz TMA-7 crew. He is in the process of completing the cosmonaut training program, and as declared by the Russian space agency, he's in excellent condition and we enthusiastically look forward to his launch.”

Dr. Olsen, chairman of the Board of Directors and co-founder of Sensors Unlimited, Inc., Princeton, N.J., commented, ”I have been committed to this orbital mission ever since Space Adventures announced my candidacy last year. Since then, I have completed over 500 hours of cosmonaut training at Star City and am excited to finish my preparations. I also look forward to finalizing the components of my remote sensing and astronomy research projects that I plan to conduct while aboard the space station.”

“We are pleased to confirm Dr. Olsen as a member of the next Soyuz crew. His determination and dedication to this mission should be seen as highly commendable and respected by the entire space community,” stated Anatoly Perminov, chief of the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation (FSA). “Dr. Olsen will be the first space tourist launched since the Columbia tragedy; we look forward to many future private missions.”

Last year, several weeks into his training program, Dr. Olsen underwent a routine medical evaluation in which a health condition was detected that prohibited him from continuing his training. The condition has since been remedied, and, after a re-evaluation, Dr. Olsen received clearance on May 14, 2005 to resume his cosmonaut training. The back-up Soyuz TMA-7 crew for the mission includes Sergey Kostenko, Alexander Lazutkin and Jeff Williams.

Dr. Olsen, born in 1945 in Brooklyn, N.Y., was raised in a working class family. His father was an electrician and his mother a schoolteacher. He graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University with a bachelor’s of science and master’s degree in physics. He then went on to graduate from the University of Virginia with a doctorate in materials science. From 1972 to 1983, he worked at RCA Laboratories, now known as the Sarnoff Corporation. In 1984, Dr. Olsen started his first company, Epitaxx and later sold it for $12 million (USD). He founded Sensors Unlimited, Inc. in 1992, later sold it for $700 million (USD) in 2000. Sensors Unlimited develops highly sensitive near-infrared cameras.

Space Adventures, the only company to have successfully launched private space explorers to the International Space Station, is headquartered in Arlington, Va. with offices in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Moscow and Tokyo. It offers a variety of programs such as Zero-Gravity and MiG flights, cosmonaut training, spaceflight qualification programs and reservations on future suborbital spacecrafts. The company's advisory board comprises Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, shuttle astronauts Sam Durrance, Robert (Hoot) Gibson, Byron Lichtenberg, Norm Thagard, Kathy Thornton, Pierre Thuot, Charles Walker and Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott. For more information, please visit www.spaceadventures.com. To learn more about Dr. Olsen’s orbital mission, please visit www.GoToOrbit.com

Posts: 2896
From: Titusville, FL USA
Registered: Feb 2005

posted 07-28-2005 06:19 PM               

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What does the shuttle grounding do to the Expedition 12 crew? Will Olsen be bumped from TMA-7 or will Tomas Reiter miss out on this Expedition?

Tim

Posts: 2610
From: Brussels, Belgium
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 07-29-2005 04:07 AM               

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quote:

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Originally posted by KSCartist:
What does the shuttle grounding do to the Expedition 12 crew? Will Olsen be bumped from TMA-7 or will Tomas Reiter miss out on this Expedition?

Tim

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My information is that a Reiter flight on Soyuz would only happen if the shuttle fleet was going to be operational. The Progress freighters do not have sufficient capacity to bring up enough stuff to keep three people alive and well on the station.

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Jürgen P Esders
Berlin, Germany
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astroaddies