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Russia Announces End to Space Tourism in 2010
epsas writes "On Cosmonaut's Day (April 12th 2008) the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) announced that they will cease it's $40,000,000-a-flight space tourism enterprise. Vitaly Perminov, the head of Roskosmos, elaborated on this statement by citing national criticism of the space tourism project; all the while reiterating Roskosmos's focus on the International Space Station and the new launch site at Vostochny Cosmodrome: 'Vitaly Lopota,
the president of the Energia space rocket corporation, said he believes
space tourism is a forced measure compensating for insufficient
financing of the Russian space program.' This statement (made the day before) by Vitaly Lopota follows another announcement that 'Energia is ready to send missions to the Moon and Mars if told to do so by the government.'"
Interesting theory, but if you read the article it tells you the actual reason! ;-)
Now that Russia has oil money due to high oil prices, they can afford to fund their space program without the need for tourism. I doubt tourism was profitable. They probably did it keep the space program alive and space workers employed during hard times. But with the oil money, they can end that practice.
Table-ized A.I.
Continued tourist flights to the ISS were untenable. By 2010, the station is fully operational (heh). There'd be a lot more resistance from the other ISS partners to continuing this. There's also the possibility that the launch schedule after 2010 can't fit in a space tourist. The station has to maintain a microgravity environment which means eliminating vibration. Dockings are a source of vibration wo even now the number of dockings to the station is very restricted.