A Russian report
claiming that U.S. entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari may become the first female
space tourist to the International Space Station (ISS) is far from official,
according to the only company that brokers private trips to the orbital laboratory.
Stacey
Tearne, a spokesperson for the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures, told SPACE.com
that Ansari has expressed an interest in orbital flight and has visited Russia's
Star City cosmonaut training center. But a report by Russia's Interfax News Agency
that Space Adventures officials in Russia announced Ansari's status Tuesday as
back-up to confirmed Japanese space tourist Daisuke Enomoto
is inaccurate, the firm said.
"Nothing
was announced from our office in Virginia or Russia," Tearne said.
Ansari and
her family have a track record in private space ventures. The family backed the
Ansari X Prize, a $10 million suborbital spaceflight contest for private teams,
with a multimillion-dollar
contribution in 2004. Ansari's Texas-based firm Prodea, co-founded with
husband Hamid and brother-in-law Amir, has also partnered
with Space Adventures to develop the Explorer spacecraft, a suborbital
vehicle that will launch from at least two planned spaceports in the United
Arab Emirates and Singapore.
Space Adventures
has brokered ISS-bound flights for Enomoto, who is training
to launch to the station with the Expedition 14 crew this September, as well
the past missions of U.S. scientist and entrepreneur Gregory
Olsen in 2005, South Africa's Mark Shuttleworth in
2002, and U.S. businessman Dennis
Tito in 2001. Each of those flights carried an announced price of about $20
million.
According
to the Interfax report, which cited an unnamed Space Adventures spokesperson
based in Russia, a contract to launch the 39-year-old Ansari spaceward aboard a
future Soyuz spacecraft was under review.
"Details of
the contract are being negotiated. Ansari is expected to undergo training at
Star City as a back-up astronaut for Japanese space tourist [Daisuke] Enomoto
to perform a space journey in September 2006," Interfax quoted the spokesperson
as saying. "Ansari has been examined by Russian
doctors who have given their go-ahead to her training."
But Space Adventures
said no official announcement has been issued and that its space tourist
announcements typically come once ISS crews are officially announced by NASA
and Russia's Federal Space Agency, they added.
In addition
to providing suborbital and orbital space experiences for private citizens,
Space Adventures also arranges flights aboard Russian-built MiG jets and
airplane flights that simulate weightlessness. In August 2005, the firm also
announced plans $100 million trips around the Moon.
The 34-year-old Enomoto will mark the firm's fourth space
tourist to visit the ISS and is training for a 10-day spaceflight. Like all ISS
visitors - including Brazilian astronaut Marcos
Pontes set to launch with the Expedition
13 crew next week - Enomoto will spend eight days aboard the station before
returning to Earth.
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