Pop singer, Lance Bass of the boy band *NSYNC, is in synch with the International Space Station's Multilateral Crew Operations Panel (MCOP), receiving a formal go-ahead today for a late October flight.

The MCOP represents key players within the ISS program: The U.S., Russia, Japan, Europe, and Canada. Their recommendation now goes to a multilateral coordination board for final approval. That group is composed of space agency chiefs involved in the ISS program.

"The MCOP completed their evaluation and they've agreed that Bass meets the criteria. He is suitable as a crew member," said Debra Rahn, a spokeswoman for NASA Headquarters.

A number of action items have been underway in parallel, Rahn said. First, training at Russia's Star City, and now at the NASA Johnson Space Center. Secondly, the ISS approval processes, and thirdly contracts negotiations between Bass and the Russian Space Agency.

"That's all been going on at the same time," Rahn said. "I guess we'll just has to see how the contract situation sorts itself out," she said.

"Because of the shortness of time, it's not something you could do consecutively," Rahn said.

The MCOP approval today was speedy, Rahn said, in contrast to the flight earlier this year of South African Mark Shuttleworth, who also purchased a Soyuz seat. The approval process that involved the Bass go-ahead began in mid-July.

"They [the MCOP] have worked very quickly to review it thoroughly and come up with their assessment," Rahn said.

Meanwhile, the Soyuz 5 taxi crew -- Commander Sergei Zalyotin, Flight Engineer and ESA astronaut, Frank DeWinne from Belgium, and space fight participant, Lance Bass, have started familiarization training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

The crew is slated for liftoff on October 28 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Sitting atop their Soyuz booster, they will ferry up and dock to the ISS. They will spend eight days aboard the orbiting outpost.

Ed Campion, a spokesman for NASA Johnson Space Center, said the Soyuz taxi crewmembers are receiving instructions about U.S. elements of the space station.

Such general orientation items as caution and warning systems, emergency use of fire extinguishers and locating breathing masks are all on a week-long learning agenda. Their training started Monday and ends on Friday, Campion told SPACE.com. Bass is also receiving training on the amateur radio gear now onboard the ISS, he said.

"If any kind of caution and warning system goes off, Lance would know to look to his Russian commander for directions as to what to do. That's what the expedition crew would do too, to look to their commanders in regards to instructions," Campion said.

"It's just a general familiarization of the U.S. elements. Every Soyuz taxi crew gets this kind of orientation. It's a quid pro quo in terms of the Russian's training folks on their systems, and us training on ours," Campion said.

Campion said that the Russians have probably learned they can't operate in a linear fashion waiting until everything is lined up before training starts. "I think we'll see a multi-prong approach in the future," he said.

"The whole formal approval process for being approved for flight that all has to be worked. But if you think that this person is pretty likely to be a person going, you need to start the training sort of in parallel," Campion said.

"Lance looks very enthusiastic and very attentive to all the things that are being pointed out and told to him," Campion said. "The whole crew looks like they are taking it all in terms of the instructions being given," he said.