South African billionaire entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth is going to Mars — thanks to United States President George Bush.
Shuttleworth — who in 2002 became the first African in space when he hitched a pricey ride on a Russian Soyuz space capsule — on Thursday revealed the exciting news to the Mail & Guardian Online in an exclusive telephonic interview from his London apartment.
”Because of all the positive publicity my previous trip into space generated, Nasa recently suggested I should be involved in some of its future projects,” Shuttleworth said. ”But I never thought it would come to this.”
Nasa received a cash boost in February when Bush announced his new Budget.
The Budget includes $1-billion specifically allocated to send a manned mission to Mars, with a further $11-billion reallocated from current Nasa programmes.
Though the new project would first have involved trips to the moon, and then Mars, Nasa has decided to shake up its exploration programme and bring forward the Mars mission date to next year — and it wants Shuttleworth on board.
Nasa is expected to make the announcement at a press conference later on Thursday.
”When Nasa phoned me last night [Wednesday] I couldn’t believe it,” said Shuttleworth.
”After my space flight [in 2002] I said I don’t try to repeat past stories. But I always have a shopping list of half-baked ideas, and I have been thinking about doing something like that again in the future.”
In an interview with the Sunday Times in 2002, shortly after his trip to space, Shuttleworth had said: ”I’d like to do something creative, to travel more. I have a very, very strong interest in the rest of Africa. Who knows where it will lead?”
”I didn’t know it would lead to this, so soon,” he told the M&G Online on Thursday.
The increase in Nasa spending came after a decade of stagnation for the US space programme, and setbacks like the explosion of the Columbia shuttle on February 1 2003.
The reason for the sudden change in schedule has to do with the future priorities of the US, a Nasa spokesperson who did not want to be named told the M&G Online on Thursday.
”With the increasing risk of serious terrorist action against the US, funds may need to be re-diverted to defence spending. Therefore Nasa wants to make as much of its monetary windfall as it can, before priorities change again,” said the spokesperson.
”It’s also difficult to predict whether a successor to President Bush would have the same faith in the space programme,” he added, referring to upcoming presidential elections in the US.
Looking back at the 2002 mission, Shuttleworth said: ”The training was frightening, I was scared and lonely and I was getting a lot of flak back home; people just didn’t appreciate or understand what this could mean.
”Hopefully this time around I will have everyone’s support from the start.”
The mission is expected to blast off on April 1 2005.
This is an April Fool’s Day story originally published on the Mail & Guardian Online on April 1 2004 and should not be taken for the truth