Flying Tito to ISS, meanwhile, would certainly qualify as space commerce. Tito is the founder and president of Wilshire Associates, an investment management company based in California.

The wealthy investment manager signed a contract last week with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, also known as Rosaviacosmos, to make a 10-day roundtrip to the international station aboard a Soyuz taxi flight set for launch April 30.

The former NASA engineer who once designed flight trajectories for planetary exploration missions to Mars and Venus agreed to pay Rosaviacosmos and other Russian organizations an estimated $12 million to $20 million for the flight.

Shaw, a veteran shuttle pilot and mission commander, said NASA and its international partners have some heavy responsibilities that would have to be weighed before flying Tito or any other private citizen to the new outpost.

"They have a responsibility to have a safe environment or as safe as we make spaceflight," said Shaw.

"They have a responsibility for what I call personal assurance that means not putting someone in a position where they can do damage or harm without adequately understanding their background, their motives or their reliability as a human being. We have responsibilities not to interfere with the primary mission of the International Space Station," he said.

"But if you satisfy those [responsibilities] and others that I havent thought of or mentioned if you satisfy those kind of criteria, then its not clear to me why we wouldnt want to consider utilizing our space assets for commercial purposes that might well include [flying] paying customers," Shaw said.

"Now whether this is the right way to do it, or whether now is the right time to start, I dont know. But I think that its in our future."

Tito and two veteran Russian cosmonauts Talgat Musabayev and Yuri Butarin are plunging ahead with mission preparations at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center at Star City outside Moscow.

NASA officials, meanwhile, are cautiously guarded when it comes to discussing the possibility of Tito flying to the international station.

Michael Hawes, associate deputy administrator for the ISS program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., told reporters Monday the general issue of flying civilians to the station will be taken up during mid-February meetings at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

A so-called Bilateral Crew Operations Panel is tentatively scheduled to meet the week of Feb. 12 to talk about the type of training and medical tests a prospective civilian flyer would have to complete and pass before launching to the ISS.

The panel which is chaired by NASA chief astronaut Charlie Precourt and includes veteran Russian cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliev is expected to form recommendations that then would be passed along to project managers on the U.S. and Russian sides.

Ultimately, all ISS partners including the European Space Agency, whose chief project manager recently voiced strong opposition to a Tito flight to the station would be brought into the final decision-making process, Hawes said.

One thing, meanwhile, sticks in Shaws mind when it comes to spaceflight and the possibility of civilians visiting the international station. And thats the strong feeling that came over him after Columbia reached orbit on his first shuttle flight (STS-9) in 1983.

"You know, I remember an overwhelming sensation that I had very early on that flight. And that sensation was: `I wish everybody I know could be here with me," Shaw said.

"And I still feel that way."