commercial_cosmo_000527 Tired of holding your breath for your chance to experience watery weightlessness?
Your wait is over. Once you get to the Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center outside Moscow, it costs less than a VCR to enroll in an entry-level course that will give you the chance to train underwater as cosmonauts do.
Training in the neutral buoyancy lab at the Gagarin Cosmonauts' Training Center
The Gagarin Center (commonly referred as
Star City) has been offering space travel training experiences to the public since 1990. Now it is selling courses in its underwater neutral buoyancy tank which measures about 25 yards (23 meters) across and is about 13 yards (12 meters) deep. 
One (course) is Orientation to Space Suit Diving, which costs $225. Another is an advanced Space Diver course, which costs $700, and finally Space Suit Diver. The latter costs $6,000 since a customer is using a real EVA suit ...
Since it became available, the underwater experience is among the most popular commercial offerings at Star City.
"We offer three basic courses," said Col. Nikolai Grekov, a former cosmonaut-candidate and the Centers chief of Cosmonauts Training in the Conditions of A Hostile Environment, in an exclusive interview with SPACE.com.
"One is Orientation to Space Suit Diving which costs $225. Another is advanced Space Diver course which costs $700, and finally Space Suit Diver," he said.
"The latter costs $6,000 since a customer is using a real EVA (extra-vehicular activity) suit and practices assembly procedures on a space station mock-up placed on the bottom of the tank."
Courses last from three to five days. The Center recently started cooperating with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, a California-based organization that certifies divers and diving schools.
Space Diver and Space Suit Diver graduates at Star City get official PADI certificates.
Back on dry land
If diving is among the most popular experiences for sale at Star City, flying in a zero-G aircraft -- a specially equipped IL-76 aircraft that resembles NASA's "
Vomit Comet" -- is certainly among the most challenging. 
A centrifuge used for training at Star City
"There was a case when a client onboard asked the crew to stop making parabolas after just two of them," Grekov said.
The IL-76 experience is not as stressful as the Vomit Comet, he said.
"IL-76 makes a short horizontal flight after each parabola which gives people onboard a small break, while KC-135 starts climbing right after recovery from diving," Grekov said. "Such 'American Hills' can take the balance system even of a well-trained person to its limit."
Fees range to astronomical
The overall cost of elementary cosmonauts training for the public at Star City depends on the volume of the training which the customer wants to take, as well as on how many customers enroll.
"Flying 10 parabolas in a zero-G aircraft, for example, would cost to a single client about $18,000 to $20,000, including take-off and landing," Grekov said.
"However, if there are 10 clients onboard, each of them will have to pay only about $2,000. By the way, 15 parabolas will cost $20,000 to $22,000 and 20 parabolas go for $20,000 to $25,000. Such insignificant cost increases over the cost of 10 parabolas can be explained by the fact that a considerable portion of money is spent on take off and landing of IL-76."
Fundraising for space
Overall, the Star City courses are designed to familiarize the public with the work of space travelers and to generate income for the grossly malnourished Russian space program.
In May 1990, the Russian government authorized Star City to look for foreign customers and offer them basic cosmonaut training.
The first customers reported to the City in 1990. About 3,000 tourists, foreigners and Russians, have visited the Center since then.
Most of them complete a four-hour program which familiarizes them with the Centers activities and its facilities.
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