An American entrepreneur
with aspirations of reaching the International Space Station (ISS) has once
again begun training for a tourist trip to the orbital facility.
Greg Olsen, head of the Princeton,
New Jersey-based optics company Sensors Ltd., resumed spaceflight training on
May 14 in Russia's
Star
City for an ISS-bound
spaceflight brokered by the space tourism firm Space Adventures. He has about
three more months of training to complete, Space Adventures officials said.
A specific launch date has
not been announced, but Olsen had originally hoped to launch toward the ISS
alongside the Expedition 11 crew in April 2005. Italian astronaut Roberto
Vittori, of the European Space Agency, filled that open seat under an agreement
with Russia's
Federal Space Agency and returned to Earth eight days later. The next manned
Soyuz flight will carry Expedition 12 to the ISS is currently set for Sept. 27.
Olsen is slated to be the
third paying space tourist to the ISS following the successful flights of
Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth in 2001 and 2002, respectively. The
spaceflights of both Tito and Shuttleworth were also brokered by Arlington,
Virginia-based Space Adventures.
Olsen originally began training
for his ISS spaceflight in April 2004, but cut short his preparations when an
undisclosed medical condition disqualified him for launch.
That health condition has
since been remedied, allowing Olson to pick up his training regime where he
left off, Space Adventures spokesperson Stacey Tearne told SPACE.com.
"He has remained so
committed to the program," Tearne said of Olsen.
In an earlier interview
Olson told SPACE.com that he plans to pay about $20 million for the
spaceflight, which would launch aboard a Soyuz spacecraft and include eight
days in orbit, six of them aboard the ISS. The potential space tourist also
stated his intent to conduct optics experiments with infrared cameras and study
crystal growth while in orbit.