spacetoday.net: Japanese space tourist dropped from Soyuz flight

Posted: Mon, Aug 21, 2006, 1:42 PM ET (1742 GMT)
Daisuke Enomoto (Dice-K.com)

A Japanese space tourist who planned to fly to the International Space Station on a Soyuz flight next month has been removed from the mission after failing a physical, Russian officials said Monday. Daisuke "Dice-K" Enomoto was to take a week-long flight to the ISS next month on a regularly-scheduled Soyuz taxi flight, but officials with the Russian space agency Roskosmos announced Monday that Enomoto failed a medical examination and thus would not be included in the three-person crew. The nature of his medical problem that prohibited his flight, and why the problem was not previously detected, were not disclosed. His place on the Soyuz TMA-9 mission will likely be taken by another space tourist, American entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari, who has been training as Enomoto's backup should a problem like this arise. Ansari would become the first female space tourist to visit the ISS.