spacetoday.net: Russia officially removes Bass from flight

Posted: Tue, Sep 10, 2002, 12:34 AM ET (0434 GMT)
Lance Bass (MirCorp)

The Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos officially notified NASA and the other ISS partner nations on Monday that it has removed pop star and would-be space tourist Lance Bass from the crew of an October Soyuz taxi flight. Rosaviakosmos officials said that Bass's nomination to the crew had been withdrawn because he had failed to make any payments for the flight. Rosaviakosmos had announced on September 3 that Bass has been removed from the crew because of non-payment, but Monday's official notification makes it almost certain that Bass will not fly to the station on the October mission. Executives with MirCorp, the company that had brokered Bass's flight, had said as recently as Friday that they hoped to resolve the situation this week. Instead of Bass, Rosaviakosmos will fly a container with additional cargo for the station.