They say money can’t buy everything, but apparently $20 million can buy you a seat on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station Alpha. Of course, California millionaire Dennis Tito needed a lot of determination to finish the nine-month preparation course in Russia, which included training on Russian space equipment and a wilderness survival course. Of course, NASA was against it from the start. It maintained that Tito would present a danger to the space station and that the space program is not ready for amateurs in space.

How else is Russia going to get the money, though? It’s a poor country that loves its space program, quite the opposite of the United States. Here, we won’t give the space program the time of day. God forbid we should give them more than enough money to make a robot out of Popsicle sticks to send to Mars.

I think NASA should take a tip from Russia and start sending up its own tourists. That way, it can’t bitch about the tourists not having enough training.

Money does make the world go ’round, but it’s also needed to explore other worlds. What better way to get it than by selling backstage passes to the missions?

Once the space program is able to generate enough income, private companies will begin to see a cash incentive to join in and present competition to the government. Right now, the space program is like the U.S. Postal Service — it’s a money pit that no corporation would be stupid enough to take over. But if we can make it pay, oh boy, will the corporations be lining up to get their piece of the pie. There’ll be competition in space again, just like back when the Russians actually had a smattering of money. That would be enough to jumpstart the improvement of the technology.

That’s what we need. I mean, if there were only one company that made computers, it would have no reason to improve them all that much. We’d probably all have 386s right now, and we’d think they were super fast.

We know all about the capitalism vs. communism debate. Communism is a wonderful idea; it’s very beautiful. But it’s stagnant. Without Sega, we’d all still be playing Nintendo games. Once people want something better, they have to make it themselves. But right now, not enough people in this country care about wanting something better for the space program. Yeah, lots of people do, but not enough.

All we need to do is make corporations care about wanting something better so they can offer a better product (and therefore gain more money) than their competitors.

One of the reasons so many inventions and technological improvements are made during wartime is that there is a very real, palpable sense of competition. Tito himself is interested in this area as a business venture when he returns to Earth.

When the Russians were going to send Tito to Mir, nobody objected. NASA, though it of course had no say in the matter, did not admonish against it. But with Mir gone, Russia felt the need to honor Tito’s contract with its space program and transfer Tito to the International Space Station.

According to Tito, NASA didn’t begin objecting until a few months before the actual launch was scheduled. But finally, just in the past week, NASA agreed to let Tito into the American part of the space station on a limited basis — sort of like, “”OK, we’ll let you in, just play nice.””

One of the benefits resulting from this flight is that it will open up the minds of the astronauts and the public to allow amateurs in their midst.

Tito said, “”I think private citizens from all walks of life will be able to take the experience … and relate it back to the common person.”” Right now, if Russia gets their way, all private citizens from the rich walks of life will be able to go to space given their determination and aptitude in the training program.

But maybe some day, hopefully some day soon, the corporations will take hold of this idea and allow people like you and me to save up a few thousand dollars and hop on a shuttle to a hotel just outside of the earth’s atmosphere and spend a weekend there.

Maybe I’ve been reading too many science fiction books. I certainly hope not — we have the technology, or something close to it, right now. All we need is the drive, the passion, the greed to get us there. And when we have it, I’m going to be one of the first up there. I’ll bring my camera and take some pictures for you.