News Report 3

News Report 3
Wannabe Space Tourist Wants $21 Million Back Over Scuttled Mission
By David Kravets
url:
http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2008/09/enomoto_lawsuit

Japanese Internet tycoon, Daisuke Enomoto, paid $21 million to a private firm with connections to the Russian Federal Space Agency, for a 10 day orbital sojourn that never happened. After Daisuke refused to give up more money the mission was scratched and his health was cited as the reason he was unable to make the mission. Now, Space Adventures is refusing to refund Daisuke his $21 million. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, tells a tale seeped in eye-popping sums of money, and allegations of the rich eating the rich in a bid to reach space, the final frontier.
Space Adventures is not refunding the money because in the contract that Daisuke signed with them, he was ineligible for a refund if he was unable to make the flight do to a health exam. In his first health exam that he passed and was cleared to fly, the exam showed he had kidney stones. Although the kidney stones were found he was still cleared to fly. Then in a second health exam, a month before the flight, Daisuke was scratched from the mission because his kidney stones had gotten bigger. Daisuke claims he was never informed or even showed results of his second health exam. In response to the complaint, Space Adventures said in a court filing Wednesday that, "Even if Enomoto could prove his unlikely claim that he was somehow misled, he suffered absolutely no damage from any misstatement because, as the complaint admits, the cause of his failure to fly was medical disqualification, not lack of authority."