This is what Anna Rathsman, director general of the Swedish Space Agency, tells Studio Ett in Sveriges Radio.
– We actually got this a bit like a last-minute ticket, you could say. And that sounds like a lot of money, and it is a lot of money, but if you compare it to a lot of other things and what we get, I think it’s worth it, says Rathsman and continues:
– And it’s cheap.
The Swedish Space Agency was asked last spring if it wanted to send an astronaut to the space station.
– It was not only the government and the Swedish Space Agency that said yes, but also companies and the Armed Forces. Everyone said they wanted to do this, that this is good for Sweden, says Rathsman.
The mission was the first carried out by the European Space Agency together with a private company.