TV game shows are heading out of this world. An American producer is planning
to film a group of contestants training as astronauts, then blast one winner off
to the Mir space station for a 10-day mission.
To send the winner up to Mir, Mark Burnett, producer of a hit US documentary
series called Survivor, has signed a $20 million deal with
private company MirCorp that has leased the Mir space station from the Russian
government. The production team will select several people in the US to go to
Star City, the cosmonaut training centre near Moscow, for up to three
months.
Burnett is negotiating with television networks to air the series,
Destination Mir, late next year or early in 2002. Once a week, the
programme will document the volunteers鈥� training. 鈥淓very week on television one
of them will be eliminated from the programme by the Russians,鈥� Burnett told
New Scientist. 鈥淭he last person remaining is the one who goes on the
尘颈蝉蝉颈辞苍.鈥�
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An earlier programme will air the launch of American multimillionaire Dennis
Tito, who next June will become the first person to pay his own way into space.
鈥淏ut we鈥檙e going to plan to put an ordinary citizen of regular means鈥攏ot a
professional cosmonaut and not a millionaire who can afford the ticket鈥攐n
a Soyuz rocket,鈥� says Burnett.
His earlier Survivor series followed the fate of a group of people
on an isolated island; each week they voted to send one person home. In the
three-month Destination Mir series, however, Russian officials will
decide who鈥檚 axed.
鈥淚t鈥檚 exactly what happens when cosmonauts go to space. They鈥檙e competing
with each other to meet mission requirements,鈥� says Burnett. He expects
psychological skills and calmness to play a more important role in the decision
than 鈥渂eing fastest and sharpest鈥�.