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CNN Live At Daybreak

'N Sync Singer Lance Bass Not Going into Space

Aired September 03, 2002 - 06:29   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: 'N Sync singer Lance Bass apparently will not be going up into space.
CNN's Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty is standing by with the reason. Does it have to do with 20 million big ones, Jill?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Carol. That really is what it's been all along here. And it's been back and forth, a big tug of war between the organizers of Lance Bass and the Russian space agency. But finally, the Russian space agency is saying that's it, no more, he's not going to fly.

In fact, just a few minutes ago we spoke to Constantine Kredenko (ph), who's with the Russian Space Agency Press Service, and he said the organizers for Lance Bass simply couldn't come up with the money, that they didn't pay a dime. And so he says on October 28, when that flight is going to go up to the international space station, there will be a Russian and a Belgian aboard, but Lance Bass won't be on it.

And he said, in fact, that they're planning on sending probably some type of cargo container in place of Lance Bass.

Now, we contacted the other side, Lance Bass' people, and talked to Jeffrey Manber (ph), who is with Mir Corporation. And he said no, it's not over, we have another proposal. In fact, I'm out the door ready to go to anew meeting. This was just about an hour ago.

He says there is this new proposal and that Celebrity Missions, which is the organization that's pushing this for Lance Bass, is ready and prepared to go ahead. He also said Lance Bass trained yesterday at Star City. He did not train today, he said, but that his stuff is still out at Star City.

So, Carol, we don't know. It's been, we've been through this a lot, as I said, back and forth. But at this time it doesn't sound good for Lance Bass becoming the youngest person to ever fly into space.

COSTELLO: It just seems ridiculous somehow that he didn't get the financing in order before he went through all this training and got all this media attention.

DOUGHERTY: Well, one of the problems is these contracts are pretty complicated and it's money but it's also the production. You know, there was a Hollywood producer who was interested in producing this. And so it gets very, very complicated. And doing contracts here in Russia is very complicated. Most -- both sides weren't talking about exactly what the sticking point is.

But unless some miracle happens and they can pull something off at this meeting, it looks like it's not going to happen.

COSTELLO: No, it doesn't. And he's being replaced by a cargo container.

DOUGHERTY: Yes, a sad note.

COSTELLO: That's so sad. OK.

Jill Dougherty, thank you very much, reporting live from Moscow.

It looks like Lance Bass, the 'N Sync member, will not be going up into space.

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