London - On 1 September, Soyuz flight TMA18M will blast off for the International Space Station 230 miles above the Earth. Commanding the mission will be Russian cosmonaut Colonel Sergey Volkov, 42, on his third mission into space.
Assisting him will be Flight Engineer Andreas Mogensen, 35, a European Space Agency astronaut with an engineering PhD.
And strapped into the Soyuz’s third seat will be… Sarah Brightman, of Hot Gossip, Phantom of the Opera and Cats, and the former I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper hitmaker.
“The world’s biggest selling soprano, an international superstar as beloved for her staggering vocal range” (as it says on her website), won’t just be paying millions to live the dream she has dreamed since seeing Neil Armstrong land on the Moon in 1969.
She will be inspiring girls everywhere to become scientists, encouraging us to save the planet and, of course, promoting world peace. This week, Brightman, 54, invited the media to the basement cinema of a swanky central London hotel to tell the world a little more. Appropriately enough, she was introduced by Carol Vorderman, of Countdown fame. But before that there was “the video”. Inspirational orchestral music swelled. Images of the Moon landings flickered on the screen. Miss Brightman told us how the landings had changed her life.
We saw her surrounded by smiling children of all different nations and races, encouraging them: “Let’s ensure we continue these eco-activities.” We heard a newsreader tell us the soprano planned to “sing from space in an appeal for peace.”
There wasn’t a detailed breakdown of how belting out space-based numbers would melt the stony hearts of Vladimir Putin and other strongmen, but Brightman’s website did inform us that she is a Unesco Artist for Peace ambassador, and “upon her return to Earth, she’ll perform various epic ‘Space to Place’ concerts.”
“I am very overwhelmed by all this,” she said, “It’s been an amazing journey… I wish everybody could take this journey.” Which, as she acknowledged, might be tricky. Reports suggest that Brightman has paid the American company Space Adventures £34m for her 10-day trip.
She explained she was “contractually” obliged to avoid revealing the actual sum, but she could at least end rumours that the money had come from an ultra-wealthy Chinese business consortium.
“I paid for this myself,” said Brightman. Those tough questions, though, just kept coming.
“You are looking phenomenal,” said one reporter. “How does that feel here on Earth?”
She had done “incredibly well” in the medical tests, and “really, really well” in the psychological assessments.
“It will be lovely,” she enthused, to be able to talk to children on Earth while she is in space. Orbiting our “beautiful planet” 16 times a day would help her “see how delicate it is” – thus helping in the other part of her Unesco brief, which is to promote sustainable development.
And, she admitted humbly, while “an engineer can go up there and do whatever they can with their expertise, with me, all I can give is to do what I do and sing”.
Brightman has been working on a song with her ex-husband Andrew Lloyd Webber. But, she said, it was too soon to say what tune she would pick.
“We are taking it slowly because of the complexity. Singing in micro-gravity is very difficult. I don’t want to promise too much.”
The Independent