spacetoday.net: Report: Space Adventures sells two seats on future Soyuz missions

Updated: Wed, Dec 17, 2003, 10:05 AM ET (1505 GMT)
Originally Posted: Tue, Dec 16, 2003, 9:42 PM ET (0242 GMT)
ISS illustration (NASA)

Space tourism company Space Adventures has sold seats on two future Soyuz flights to the International Space Station, Reuters reported late Tuesday. The report, since confirmed by several other publications, said that two unidentified Americans have agreed to spend $20 million each for the flights. One of the tourists will fly on a mission in October 2004, while the other will fly sometime in 2005. No details about the tourists were provided other than that one of them is a 38-year-old male Manhattan real estate developer. Space Adventures will reveal the names of these tourists in January, the report stated. Space Adventures helped broker the first two space tourist flights to the ISS, by Dennis Tito in April 2001 and by Mark Shuttleworth one year later. In June the company announced that it was planning a dedicated tourist mission in 2005 to the station; it's not clear from this announcement if that dedicated flight is still planned. The Reuters article did say that Space Adventures is selling two additional seats on future Soyuz flights that would "lock up" all the available seats through 2007. There is no information about the announcement on the Space Adventures web site; the company did issue a press release Tuesday announcing a redesign of their site.