September 12, 2000

11:22 AM

"Space Survivor" deal is cutto the tune of 40 million. Watch in drooling wonder as perky americans from every age/race/sex demographic go though the trials of a "Survivor" race to be an astronaut- on Mir!! Wasn't Mir supposed to be ditched in the ocean years ago?
posted by metasak (7 comments total)

I think that this is a great idea personally. I don't know how inclined I will be to watch this show (unless there happens to be another contestant as hot as Colleen) but I would definitely like to be on it. I would definitely deal with all the crap involved in being on a show of this type PLUS all the crap involved in qualifying to be a cosmonaut just for the opportunity to go into space. It certainly would be worth more than a million dollar prize to me. Unfortunately for the networks, I think that the kind of contestent that will be attracted to the going-into-space prize will be overall less interesting to watch for the average viewer than those attracted to the million-dollar prize. Maybe I'm wrong though. It is also a bit of a gamble to assume that Mir will still be in orbit a year and a half from now.
posted by donkeymon at 12:02 PM on September 12, 2000

NASA has long wished that Russia would ditch Mir, so that it can concentrate on ISS. Russia, alas, has different ideas. (And the Russian equivalent of NASA, the RSA, is a fig leaf; the real power there is with the privately-owned aerospace contractors Energia and Krunichev (who are always in pissing matches). Effectively Mir is a private venture, with the Russian government the primary customer.

If you read Dragonfly, you'll learn that cosmonauts are veritable capitalists by comparison with our selfless public servants, with every risky or complicated task earning them a bonus. This really is quite in line with all that. ;-)
posted by dhartung at 12:35 PM on September 12, 2000

Kill Your Television
posted by Brilliantcrank at 12:48 PM on September 12, 2000

Now this is some real surviving. Can a lowly American cope with a collapsing space station? Or will he or she merely sit around and drink vodka out of a pouch?

I wonder if the Russian space program is going to start slapping ads onto the side of Mir to offset their costs. "This day of oxygen and food is brought to you by PepsiCo!" Great.
posted by RakDaddy at 1:12 PM on September 12, 2000