spacetoday.net: Status of Bass space flight unclear

Posted: Thu, Aug 8, 2002, 10:59 AM ET (1459 GMT)
Lance Bass (MirCorp)

Time may be running out for pop star Lance Bass to arrange the funding he needs to fly on a Soyuz mission this October as a space tourist, although recent reports suggested that there was no firm deadline and that a significant fraction of the cost of the trip has been raised. Reports out of Russia this week noted that Russia might cancel plans to include Bass on the crew of the late October Soyuz flight to ISS because Bass had not come up yet with the bulk of the reported $20 million needed for the flight. Rosaviakosmos spokesman Sergei Gorbunov told Reuters that Bass's backers had asked that the deadline for payment be extended until August 9, but said that "if they do not pay up on the 9th, I don't know what will happen." However, Gorbunov later told CNN that there was no firm deadline, but that they were still waiting for payment. David Krieff, the producer who is arranging the sponsorships to pay for the flight, told MSNBC that $12.5 million had been raised, but had not yet been transferred to the Russians because of paperwork delays related to insurance policies for the flight.