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Lance Bass’s Canceled 2002 Soyuz Flight—and His Return With The Last Soviet

Lance Bass never made the planned 2002 Soyuz trip to the ISS: sponsors failed to raise the estimated fare. In 2023, he returned to space stories as host of The Last Soviet.
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Lance Bass did not go to space. In 2002, Russian officials withdrew the *NSYNC singer from a planned Soyuz flight to the International Space Station after the sponsors failed to raise the estimated fare. “He’s back” refers to Bass hosting the 2023 podcast The Last Soviet, not to a new spaceflight.

Why was Lance Bass removed from the Soyuz crew?

Bass trained for a proposed trip to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. NASA’s historical chronology records that the documentary’s sponsors failed to raise the estimated US$20 million fare. Russian officials then withdrew him from the crew scheduled to depart on 28 October 2002. NASA’s chronology, published in 2011, describes the fundraising failure and the planned departure.

The withdrawal was not NASA ejecting Bass from a NASA flight. The Associated Press reported at the time that Russia notified NASA of the decision. NASA spokeswoman Debra Rahn said: “It was a business decision in which NASA had no part.” The contemporaneous CBS News report places the decision with the Russian side and the sponsors’ inability to raise the estimated fare.

What training had Bass completed?

In a 2023 interview, Bass recalled spending four months training in Russia, including language study and pre-launch tests, before he learned that funding had fallen through. He had expected to travel to Baikonur for final preparations. Those details come from his later recollection, not from the NASA chronology. Speaking to Ars Technica, he summed up the cancellation: “It was crushing.” Eric Berger’s 2023 interview with Bass recounts the training and the collapse of the plans.

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What does “he’s back” mean?

In February 2023, Bass hosted The Last Soviet, an eight-part podcast about cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and the upheaval surrounding the Soviet Union’s dissolution. Krikalev was aboard the Mir space station when the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991. Ars Technica described his extended mission as lasting 311 days and reported that the podcast drew on accounts from Krikalev’s colleagues and friends after planned interviews with him were canceled following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ars Technica’s interview and Space.com’s February 2023 coverage describe the project.

Bass also said in 2023 that he remained interested in a longer orbital mission involving scientific experiments, rather than a brief suborbital ride. That was an expression of interest, not an announcement of a booked flight. The available reporting does not establish that he later trained for or flew on another mission.

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Space Atlas, Second Edition: Mapping the Universe and Beyond
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Did Lance Bass ever go to space?

No. His 2002 Soyuz trip was planned but canceled before launch, and the sources cited here do not establish a later spaceflight. Bass’s return in 2023 was to space-related storytelling as host of The Last Soviet.

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Space Atlas, Second Edition: Mapping the Universe and Beyond
Space Atlas, Second Edition: Mapping the Universe and Beyond
Book - space atlas, second edition: mapping the universe and beyond; Language: english; Binding: hardcover
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