Rocket Scientist or Space Cadet?

Final frontier or tourist destination?

By Ian Shoales

Last June, with my mouse finger twitching and the Web beckoning me with silken fingers, I was happily avoiding actual work and cruising for news in my cube. Suddenly, I came across a story on the MSNBC page: “Rocket scientist says he has ‘the right stuff’ to be a paying passenger.”

Scrolling down the page, I learned that a company called MirCorp has “bought the rights to rent Mir,” the Russian space shuttle. The company’s plan is to encourage “citizen explorers” to sign up for outer space vacations on the Mir. Each citizen explorer, accompanied on the voyage by two Russian cosmonauts, would stay on the Mir for a week.

Dennis Tito, age 59, is willing to shell out close to 20 million bucks for this experience. The founder of Wilshire Associates, well known for its Wilshire 5000 stock index, Tito was also a NASA engineer once upon a time. MirCorp-backer Chirinjeev Kathuria claims that the term “rocket scientist” was actually coined with Tito in mind.

This story intrigued me on a number of levels.

First of all, I didn’t know that Tito was the prototype for “rocket scientist.” Back in the days of Werner Von Braun, what did we call him? Besides “former Nazi rocket designer,” I mean? I guess “really smart German” was good enough.

There’s a tradition, as well, of referring to a smart person as a “real Einstein.” But I doubt that Einstein himself was ever called a “real Einstein.” Maybe people called him a “Newton.” But because Einstein’s theories undermined the premises of Newtonian physics, he might have considered that an insult.

Smart people are also called “mental giants” and “Brainiacs,” after one of Superman’s archenemies. There’s also “brain surgeon.” This term is usually connected with a person who must perform an intricate physical act that requires both intelligence and hand-eye coordination. Well, to be more accurate, we usually use “brain surgery” as a term to refer to things that aren’t brain surgery. When we refer to the act of grilling burgers, for instance, we say: “It ain’t brain surgery.” Grilling burgers, interestingly, is also not rocket science.

So Tito is the original rocket scientist. But he’s also an entrepreneur, a word that’s a little fuzzier. After all, an entrepreneur can be anybody from Bill Gates to a street-corner vendor who stamps a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on a penny. In the old days we had Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan. Well, today’s Rockefeller can be tomorrow’s guy on the street holding a sign: “Will swap revenue models for food.”

So how smart is Tito? He’s willing to shell out 20 million bucks to squeeze into a tin can with two Russians and get shot into the vacuum of space. If I had that kind of dough, I can think of things I’d rather do with it. Buy a Lexus maybe.

And once he gets to the Mir, what then? Oh sure, the wonders and glories of space, and so on. The earth, a pale watery orb on a field of velvet, and so forth. Okay. Gawking in awe might kill an hour or two. But what then? You’re stuck in a smelly, broken-down piece of junk with two Russians, that’s what!

My own people come from cold, eastern tribes, and I can say with confidence that Russians aren’t necessarily fun traveling companions. Sure, many Russians can be Brainiacs (such as Tchaikovsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, and Nabokov), but when it comes to vacation activities — well, when was the last time you saw a Russian playing shuffleboard?

Face it, you won’t be a Luke Skywalker up there, zipping between asteroids and zapping Empire minions. You’re drifting helplessly in orbit. You’re stuck up there, cramped, uncomfortable and twiddling your thumbs as your traveling companions drink vodka and bemoan the fate of Mother Russia. That’s the worst-case scenario. Best case? You play chess intensely and argue vigorously about humanity’s true place in the universe. Either way, I just don’t see a 20 million-dollar adventure here.

Maybe instead of two cosmonauts, MirCorp could spring for a couple of brain surgeons to join the rocket scientist on his journey. If something goes wrong they could at least use their fabulous mental and physical dexterity to fix it.

Then again, if I were forced to make this journey I’d probably make the MirCorp entrepreneurs come with me. That way, if the station’s duct tape should start unraveling up there in the ionosphere, I could turn to my would-be tycoons and wannabe moguls and sneer, “Nice play, Shakespeare.” That’s the nice thing about sarcasm. It may not be rocket science, but it requires no skill sets, and it sure is satisfying.