A little news on the space tourist front. Well, it's not news exactly--more of an editorial. From a Moscow television station. The translation was passed on to me by a reliable source, and it provides an interesting view into the mindset of some Russians toward the whole thing.

The following is a translation of a segment on the 9 PM July 29, 2002, news program of ORT-TV, one of Russia's leading television networks.

"The Avia-Space Agency of Russian Federation has just concluded a preliminary space travel contract with Lanz Bass, a member of the pop band N 'SYNC. However, it's a little bit early to think that the third chair in the 'Soyuz' that will depart this Fall to the International Space Station is already taken.

"The final decision about the pop-star's participation will be made only after the sponsors of the project will have paid at least some of their financial obligations. The 23-year old Lanz Bass, born in a small town of Mississippi, says that he has dreamed of flying to space since he was a little kid. Now his dream is very close to its fulfillment, but the pleasure will be an expensive one. This time around, NASA executives did not express their discontent with Bass' flight, but in general, their attitude towards space tourists is complex: they cause too much trouble.

"But the pop-star has another major difficulty right now: how is he going to pay 20 mln dollars for his flight? As some media says, Bass is supported by a big fan of commercial space flights, Walter Anderson, the president of MirCorp. and by some other sponsors, including the music TV-channel 'MTV' and a Hollywood company 'Destiny Productions'. Sponsors are the key problem for the N'SYNC singer: MTV and 'Destiny Productions' have Napoleonic plans for this occasion - they've already inked some agreements for producing a feature film and a series of shows about the singer's training period and about the flight itself, of course. Sensing great profits, they forgot a simple thing: before you get a profit, you have to make an investment. They've invested nothing thus far - they don't have enough money.

I suspect that by "Napoleonic," the translator meant grandiose. Of course, Russians probably still have a thing about Napolean, even two centuries on...

"President of 'Destiny Productions' David Krieff stated in Los Angeles that 'the money will be there'. It isn't hard to imagine what kind of money it will be: the money made on sex and violence, aggressiveness and stupidity.

Since the middle of 1980's, David Krieff supplies MTV and other TV-channels with vulgar, harsh, filthy, degenerate shows. They present young idiots making weird performances, telling rude stupid jokes, showing to the viewer their genitals, setting themselves on fire. The top of the class has become
a Sunday MTV show 'Jackass', where its perverted guests jump into a load of dung and throw excrement into each other. Even the senators lost their tolerance and expressed their negative attitude towards the show 'Jackass'.

Another imperfect translation, no doubt, though I might actually pay to see some of the jackasses throwing "excrement into each other."

As the protocol says, the training period for the flight to the International Space Station has to endure no less than six months. The Avia-Space Agency of Russian Federation asked NASA to make an exception for Lance Bass - they really need money and this project offered to them by the show-business investors seems to them quite appealing.

"It is said that in America money doesn't smell. It looks like it's the same way in Russia now. While Lance Bass is undergoing his training period in Star City, David Krieff and company are busy making money for the contract payment. Many people here think that this money is dirty. And nonetheless does smell."

Sounds like some folks who long for the good old days when such crude unsocialist materialistic entertainment types were just shipped off to the gulag.

You conjure a much-to-be-hoped-for vision, Mr. Simberg--Lance Bass in the Gulag.... but n'stead of the gulag, can't we figure out a way to condemn all of N'Dync to serve time on a chain gang in ... well, in Mississippi?

I can see the video now -- a remake of "Chain Gang." The boys dressed in those striped outfits... Hey wait, isn't that how they dress anyway?

To return (sort of) to the subject; I don't see that the Russians have to get all high-dudgeon about it. Just tell the N'Suck fellow that they've already sent a monkey and a dog into space, and now they would like to try a higher life form. Oh that's so cruel of me. ;)

There was an old joke during Apollo about John Glenn.

"First they sent a monkey. Then they sent a Marine. Then they sent a man..."