CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The money is in the bank; so as far as would-be-space-tourist Dennis Tito is concerned, it's time to kick the tires and light the fires on a Russian rocket ride to the International Space Station (ISS).
The former NASA engineer turned wealthy investor knows he doesn't have all of the final approvals, but he remains confident the Russians arranging his flight are doing everything in the correct order and proper time that will lead to his launch on a Soyuz rocket no earlier than April 30.
"From everything I understand as of today, this has now been okayed by the Russian Space Agency," Tito told SPACE.com on Thursday. "But before you're going to get me to say I am definitely flying, I am going to be bolted inside that capsule at Baikonur."
Due to the holiday week, officials with both the Russian Space Agency and NASA could not be reached for comment, did not return phone calls or e-mail, or did not know the official status of Tito's flight to the ISS.
Tito, meanwhile, confirmed he made the final payment of his fee to a U.S.-based escrow account this week, on time, and that he will be returning to Russia in January for a final round of training that will lead to his spaceflight in the April-May time frame.
Tito is obligated not to confirm the total price for this historic space tourism endeavor, but the Russian price tag for such a trip is widely believed to be about $20 million.
The funds were transferred into an escrow account shared by Tito, MirCorp and RKK Energia -- the parties involved in this deal -- and they will be released to the Russians the moment Tito's rocket engines are ignited at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Tito said.
Originally intending to fly to the Russian space station Mir, Tito's plans were changed for him with the Russian government's decision this fall to bring Mir out of orbit and crash it into the Pacific Ocean in February 2001.
With that news, MirCorp, the company responsible for arranging Tito's trip to Mir, quickly moved to work with its investors -- which includes RKK Energia -- and the international partners of the ISS program to find a way to allow Tito to fly anyway. Those discussions continue, MirCorp spokesman Jeff Lenorovitz said Thursday.
If it all works out, the plan calls for Tito to ride in the previously empty seat of an already scheduled Soyuz mission to replace another Soyuz spacecraft currently docked at the ISS.
U.S. astronaut Bill Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev blasted off in a Soyuz spacecraft on October 31 and docked with the Zvezda service module on November 2. The spacecraft remains docked there as an escape vehicle for the Expedition 1 crew.
Russian flight rules say the Soyuz spaceship must be replaced with a fresh vehicle about every six months.
So according to the timeline, as Tito understands it, he will fly to the ISS on the new Soyuz -- launching on or about April 30 and docking with the station two days later. He will then spend six days aboard the orbiting outpost helping transfer equipment and supplies and performing some science experiments.
At the end of the week he and his two cosmonaut colleagues will board the original Soyuz for the return to Earth, with Tito sitting in the same seat Shepherd occupied.
According to Russian news reports, which Tito believes to be true, the cosmonauts originally involved in the Soyuz ferry mission were replaced with two other cosmonauts who speak English -- a result of the fact that Tito's Russian language skills are not as well developed.
"If my Russian was great, they wouldn't have changed the crew," Tito said.
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