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Space
Tourism Interest Stirring
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Mircorp President
Jeffrey Manber arrived in Moscow on May 17 for talks with Energiya
which they hope to lead to the signing of a contract within two  weeks.
MirCorp would offer space flights into orbit aboard a Soyuz TM
spacecraft to circle the Earth instead. Rosaviakosmos has
announced that no space tourists will be launched to the
International Space Station during the next two years. The flight
charge would be much higher than the US$20 million Dennis Tito
paid for his mission aboard the ISS Soyuz TM delivery mission with
extra payments going to Soyuz booster manufacturer, Samara; the
Baikonur Cosmodrome for  launch
services, and the Kaliningrad mission control center and recovery
teams.
Applications for
tourist flights have arrived in Russia from the United States,
Germany and other countries. Someone going into space will have to
meet many medical criteria and go through training and
comprehensive testing. Several potential tourists have recently
passed medical examinations at the Institute of Medical and
Biological Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, according
to the institute's director, academician Anatoliy Grigoryev.
Dennis
Tito remarked on CNN's May 18 Moneyline program, “it's time for
other people to follow their dream” of flying in space, “and I
would like to work on that…. but first I want to find out, is
there really a market here?…I want to look at it as a
businessman and determine, is there a business opportunity
here…If there is, I want to put together a business plan and
raise the capital, and get the job done.”
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