This
story was updated at 1:23 p.m.
NEW
YORK — Space tourism took a leap forward as Virginia-based Space Adventures
announced it had bought the first private Soyuz flight to the International
Space Station in 2011, unlike its usual arrangement of wealthy individuals
riding along with astronauts on Russian spacecraft.
Google
Cofounder Sergey Brin will also take a personal step into space as one of two
space tourists on the 2011 flight. Brin has already put down a $5 million down
payment towards his future flight as the first member of the newly established
"Founding Explorer" group.
"I
am a big believer in the exploration and commercial development of the space
frontier, and am looking forward to the possibility of going into space,"
Brin said in a press statement.
Additional
members also have to pay a $5 million deposit to reserve one of the five
remaining group slots, but will receive preferential treatment in choosing
their eventual space missions.
Space
Adventures unveiled its plans at a news conference this morning at the
Explorers Club in New York.
"We're
no longer exclusively a space tourism company," said Eric Anderson, Space
Adventures president and CEO, at the event. "We're a space mission
company."
Previous
flights involved Space Adventures booking a spare seat for its "guest
cosmonauts" on Soyuz missions scheduled to head to the space station
anyway. The new private Soyuz flights will allot two out of three seats to
Space Adventures customers, allowing a Russian commander to take the third
seat. Such flights will take place in between official astronaut missions to
the space station.
Space
Adventures has flown five space tourists so far who paid between $20 million
and $25 million, including Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Greg Olsen, Anousheh
Ansari and Charles Simonyi.
American
computer game developer Richard Garriott is the next to fly in October to the
space station. The first U.S.
second-generation astronaut has launched a "Space Challenge!" for
UK students to design an experiment for him to perform during his spaceflight.
Garriott also plans to conduct educational outreach such as podcasts
and interactive webcasts while in orbit, and has commercial contracts worth
hundreds of thousands of dollars to perform protein crystal growth experiments
for pharmaceutical companies.
Garriott
is paying $30 million for his trip, and had considered forking over an
additional $15 million to add a spacewalk to his orbital flight. However, he
said in response to a question from SPACE.com that his chance would have
to wait until perhaps a second spaceflight — a trip that he also hopes to
partially or fully subsidize with commercial activities performed on the space
station.
"I'm
a big believer that humans should be in space because it's valuable to be in
space," Garriott said at the event.
Some
questions had been raised regarding the safety
of the Soyuz spacecraft, after a bumpy ballistic descent for a three-person
crew that included South Korea's first astronaut.
But
Garriott expressed confidence in the Soyuz and said it was "statistically
the safest possible way to get into orbit that exists today," adding that
the spacecraft were originally designed for ballistic reentry.
Space
Adventures has additional plans to expand to suborbital flights, possibly with
one of the companies that participated in the 2004 Ansari X Prize. Even Space
Adventures competitor Virgin Galactic received kind words.
"I'm
a huge fan of Virgin Galactic and all companies working to develop suborbital
spaceflight," Anderson said.
Space
Adventures also acquired
Zero Gravity Corporation (ZERO-G) at the start of this year. ZERO-G and
Space Adventures Cofounder Diamandis stayed on as CEO of ZERO-G, but has also
become Managing Director of Space Adventures. The acquired company has provided
a weightless flight experience using modified Boeing 727s to more than 5,000
customers since 2004.
Anderson
and Diamandis hope to fly 10,000 ZERO-G customers in 2010, and push the number
up to 100,000 over the next decade. ZERO-G's international expansion would pave
the way for future spaceports to launch suborbital and orbital flights.
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