"Lance Bass wants to go into space!"

i did a google image search for cosmonaut because i like looking at pictures of cosmonauts and right there on results page 23 is a picture of lance bass. lance bass is an american pop singer who has always had a keen interest in space. as part of a proposed tv show lance bass completed several months of cosmonaut training in star city, russia and was certified by the russian space program. lance bass was scheduled to fly into space on the soyuz TMA-1 mission that was to be launched on october 30, 2002. the capsule was scheduled to fly to the international space station and land in a desert in kazakhstan.

but the proposed tv show fell through and the russians said that lance bass could not fly into space unless he came up with a lot of money to pay for his ticket. lance bass should not have had to pay for his own ticket because he was a certified cosmonaut. that isn't fair. however, lance bass was rejected from the program due to lack of funding. He was replaced on the flight by two russian cosmonauts and some belgian space traveling man. it took three people to replace lance bass.

even though lance bass never did get to go into space i will always respect his gumption and will consider him a cosmonaut nonetheless. next time i am looking at pictures of cosmonauts i will be sure to keep an eye out for images of lance bass in a space suit and i will say "lance bass, you are a cosmonaut."