Former JPL Scientist to Visit Mir Space Station as Tourist

A former Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist plans to experience space flight as a tourist aboard the Russian space station Mir, according to the company providing private investment for the station.

The announcement Friday that Dennis Tito, who now heads Wilshire Associates in Santa Monica, is preparing to head into orbit came just hours after two cosmonauts returned from a two-month mission that resuscitated the aging and often-troubled Mir.

MirCorp spokesman Jeffrey Lenorovitz said that Tito is undergoing training in preparation for a mission in early 2001 and that he is expected to pay a deposit sealing the arrangement within the next few days.

Lenorovitz declined to say how much the deposit would be, but said the full ticket to fly was expected to cost about $20 million.

Tito, currently in Moscow, could not be reached for comment on how he expects to spend his seven to 10 days aboard the station. Lenorovitz said that what a “space tourist” might do is an open question.

“We don’t know whether he’s just going to enjoy the experience . . . or perform experiments,” Lenorovitz said.

If Tito wants to do experiments, he has the background to cook up something sophisticated. At JPL his responsibilities included working out the trajectories for the Mariner spacecraft, which reached Mars and Venus in the 1960s and ‘70s.

Officials of Russia’s cash-strapped space program had said the 14-year-old Mir would be decommissioned this spring unless investors could be found to keep it aloft.

As Mir’s time appeared to be ending, MirCorp, a Netherlands-based company, came up with funds for a mission that began April 4. The mission was aimed at performing small repairs and maintenance aboard the station to restore it to full service after it had flown unmanned for eight months.

A capsule carrying Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kaleri touched down by parachute Friday at 4:44 a.m. Moscow time near the town of Arkalyk in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan after a 3 1/2-hour descent, Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said.

“The cosmonauts confirmed that Mir is in good working order, and they demonstrated the value of Mir to the world’s business community,” said Chirinjeev Kathuria, one of MirCorp’s main investors. “We now are preparing the groundwork for upcoming missions to the station.”