NASA changes its attitude toward space tourists

• For the $20-million-plus he shelled out to Russia, he got a trip on a cramped space pod and a weeklong stay on the station that ends with a bumpy ride home Oct. 10.
• He is the second American, and the third person ever, to make a paid trip to the space station.
• NASA is taking his stay in stride, a contrast to the agency's scornful opposition to Tito.
• "First-time events are always different," says Mark Uhran, NASA's assistant associate administrator for space station.
• Private companies, meanwhile, are competing feverishly to be the first to provide bargain tickets to space with six-figure price tags instead of eight.
• Until now, the history of human spaceflight has been dominated by government-funded programs such as the space shuttle and space station, says Roger Launius, chairman of the National Air and Space Museum's space history division.
• "Now we're starting to enter into a new phase, which may be characterized as private-sector or space tourism," Launius says.
• The front-runner in the competition to send tourists to space is the team of Burt Rutan and Richard Branson.
• Rutan built the first privately funded vehicle to make it to space and is now designing a new space cruiser that will carry at least eight people.
• Branson's company says its first flight open to paying customers, who will have to pony up $200,000 each, will launch in 2008.
• That leaves the Russian program the only choice for space nuts with a hankering for an extended stay in orbit --- and the bank account to pay for it.
• Tito was not allowed to enter the U.S. portion of the station without escort, and NASA temporarily barred Tito and his Russian crewmates from training at Johnson Space Center as Olsen and his crewmates did.