Tourists To ISS Two At a Time Starting In 2012

Matt_dk writes "The US firm Space Adventures said on Friday it will be able to send two space tourists into orbit at once from 2012 onwards, on Soyuz spacecraft. 'We have been working on this project for a number of years,' said Sergey Kostenko, the head of the company's office in Russia. Each Soyuz will carry two tourists and a professional astronaut. One of the tourists will have to pass a year-and-a-half training course as a flight engineer. Space Adventures has been authorized by the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos to select and contract candidates for space tourist trips." Meanwhile, the AP has a look back at the delays and disappointments in the commercial spaceflight industry since Burt Rutan captured the Ansari X Prize 5 years ago — no space company has yet announced a date for commercial availability.

Comments

Re:Finally! I can join the Orbit-High club

[voss]

Dont laugh so fast...Some rich nerdy guy can buy a seat for himself and some hot chick prescreened
not to have space sickness.

For the small, small price of 40 million dollars he can make himself a legend.

Re:No company has yet....

[ColdWetDog]

What do you define as a 'geriatric'? Ten years ago nobody had heard of Google. 15 years ago nobody had heard of Viagra. 20 years ago the internet was an novelty item that was little used outside of academia and the US Government.

So now us old folks can use Google on the Internet to go buy Viagra. The future is here and we're loving it! Go USA!