"hop" writes:

Jochem Huhmann wrote:

Back in the Tito (or Shuttleworth, I don't remember which) days it was
said that the 20 millions would pay not only for one, but for two
complete launches. So $10,000,000 might be what a Soyuz launch actually
costs and the Russians may just turn a fair profit out of every tourist
launched.
If that figure has any merit at all, I suspect it is a result of
someone confusing the cost of a Soyuz launch vehicle with the cost of a
complete Soyuz spacecraft mission.

Whatever. Still I think that there is little doubt that the $20m the
Russians make from a tourist launch is helping them quite a bit with
keeping the show running. Which is good.

By the way, Madonna in space would surely make a hell of a PR stunt, for
all involved. I like that idea.


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery