According to an MSNBC article (“Russian space tourist may fly in 2009”), an official with Space Adventures would not comment on the Russian announcement, saying only that its policy is not to discuss anything until contracts have been finalized. The official did say that the next space tourist would be a U.S. citizen, whose identity would be announced no earlier than October 2007, for a flight late in 2008.

Another reservation for a space tourist had also been completed for the spring of 2009. Both tickets are said to be in the range of forty million U.S. dollars apiece.

Based out of Vienna, Virginia, United States, Space Adventures, Ltd. is a company that deals with providing access to space to private persons, at this time, only wealthy people who are able to afford the pricey ticket. Its website is: http://www.spaceadventures.com/.

According to its website:

“Space Adventures' vision is to open spaceflight and the space frontier to private citizens. Over the next decade Space Adventures will fly more people to space than have made the journey since the dawn of the Space Age. Our clients will fly on suborbital flights, on voyages to Earth orbit and on historic expeditions that circumnavigate the moon. Flights will leave from spaceports both on Earth and in space, visiting private space stations, and aboard dozens of different vehicles. By continually providing newly available space experiences and improving existing space experiences, Space Adventures will continue to lead the private spaceflight industry that it begun in 2001 with the flight of the world's first space tourist.”

So far, the five space tourists sent to space by Space Adventures have been: in May 2001, American businessman Dennis Tito; in April 2002, South African businessman Mark Shuttleworth; in October 2005, American entrepreneur Greg Olsen; in September 2006, Iranian American businesswoman Anousheh Ansari; and in April 2007, Hungarian American businessman and software developer Charles Simonyi.

Space tourism is a fledgling but growing business, currently only affordable for wealthy persons who are looking for a unique adventure that few have experienced. Space tourism is being developed by various private companies in the United States, as well as in foreign countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Sweden, and Singapore. For instance, the Swedish company Spaceport Sweden is planning to make Kiruna, a city in northern Sweden, a European spaceport for suborbital spaceflights of space tourists through Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

Another proposed spaceport is the Ras Al Khaimah spaceport, in the United Arab Emirates. It is considered a joint effort between Virginia-based Space Adventures and Texas-based Prodea, which is currently developing an Explorer spacecraft to carry up to five persons at a time into space for suborbital flights.

Space Adventures is also in negotiations with investors in Singapore for a Spaceport Singapore, tentatively to be located near the Changi International Airport. The facility supposedly will provide suborbital spaceflights, astronaut training, parabolic flights to simulate weightlessness, and other high-altitude adventures.


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