News from Space Adventures
Plans for the future
by G B Leatherwood
In a hastily arranged teleconference on Friday, 3 April 2009, Space Adventures
president and CEO Eric Anderson laid out some new developments for the company, the only one in the world that has arranged for private citizens to travel to the
International Space Station
, starting with
Dennis Tito in 2001.
The press conference was actually organized to announce that Space Adventure’s sixth paying client, Dr. Charles Simonyi, and the first civilian to make the trip twice, would be spending one day more in space than originally planned due to flooding of the normal landing site in Kazakhstan. (The new site is further northeast).
However, Space Adventures wanted the world know that, even though there are no more seats for tourists on Russian Soyuz spacecraft are planned after this flight, the company is not going out of the space tourism business.
“There are plans underway now for future flights via privately funded Soyuz missions,” Anderson explained, “with two paying passengers and a professional pilot. The first flight like this may happen in 2012.”
Anderson went on to say that although it is too early to tell, there may be a third seat available on other Soyuz missions. “It’s too early to tell what may develop,” he said.
An additional piece of breaking news is that it is possible for one Space Adventures client to launch on Soyuz mission PMA 16 in September. For one reason or another, the expected seat for an astronaut from Kazakhstan may not be used, thus making room for a private client.
The teleconference ended with a few questions from journalists like Tariq Malik of Space.com and commentator Jeff Foust. Those who did not get a chance to speak, including this writer, were offered the opportunity to send in their questions via e-mail for answer by Space Adventures staff.
Space Future did so.
SF: There has been mention that other countries such as China and India may be developing vehicles that could make the trip to the ISS with paying passengers, thus not having to rely solely on Russia. What does SA think the possibilities are?
SA: We foresee opportunities with numerous entities, including private and government. Space Adventures looks to work with organizations that maintain a safe transportation system.
SF: If Robert Bigelow continues to be successful in placing his inflatable habitats in orbit, will SA be involved in brokering flights there?
SA: We foresee opportunities with numerous entities, including private and government. Space Adventures looks to work with organizations that maintain a safe transportation system.
So it appears that space tourism is still alive and well, and Eric Anderson is clearly optimistic about continuing to arrange for private citizens to make the journey to space.
president and CEO Eric Anderson laid out some new developments for the company, the only one in the world that has arranged for private citizens to travel to the
International Space Station, starting with
Dennis Tito in 2001. The press conference was actually organized to announce that Space Adventure’s sixth paying client, Dr. Charles Simonyi, and the first civilian to make the trip twice, would be spending one day more in space than originally planned due to flooding of the normal landing site in Kazakhstan. (The new site is further northeast).
However, Space Adventures
wanted the world know that, even though there are no more seats for tourists on Russian Soyuz spacecraft are planned after this flight, the company is not going out of the space tourism business. “There are plans underway now for future flights via privately funded Soyuz missions,” Anderson explained, “with two paying passengers and a professional pilot. The first flight like this may happen in 2012.”
Anderson went on to say that although it is too early to tell, there may be a third seat available on other Soyuz missions. “It’s too early to tell what may develop,” he said.
An additional piece of breaking news is that it is possible for one Space Adventures
client to launch on Soyuz mission PMA 16 in September. For one reason or another, the expected seat for an astronaut from Kazakhstan may not be used, thus making room for a private client. The teleconference ended with a few questions from journalists like Tariq Malik of Space.com and commentator Jeff Foust
. Those who did not get a chance to speak, including this writer, were offered the opportunity to send in their questions via e-mail for answer by Space Adventures staff. Space Future did so.
SF: There has been mention that other countries such as China and India may be developing vehicles that could make the trip to the ISS
with paying passengers, thus not having to rely solely on Russia. What does SA think the possibilities are? SA: We foresee opportunities with numerous entities, including private and government. Space Adventures
looks to work with organizations that maintain a safe transportation system. SF: If Robert Bigelow
continues to be successful in placing his inflatable habitats in orbit, will SA be involved in brokering flights there? SA: We foresee opportunities with numerous entities, including private and government. Space Adventures
looks to work with organizations that maintain a safe transportation system. So it appears that space tourism is still alive and well, and Eric Anderson is clearly optimistic about continuing to arrange for private citizens to make the journey to space.
