spacetoday.net: American businessman selected as next space tourist

Posted: Mon, Mar 29, 2004, 7:32 PM ET (0032 GMT)
Olsen, Gregory (Space Adventures)

An American entrepreneur will fly to the International Space Station next year, space tourist firm Space Adventures announced Monday. Gregory Olsen, CEO of Sensors Unlimited, will be the third private citizen to visit the station as a crew member of a Soyuz taxi flight to the station in April 2005. Olsen plans to spend his time in space conducting a number of experiments in materials sciences and infrared remote sensing, as well as some educational activities. Olsen, 58, is paying for the $20-million trip himself: he sold Sensors Unlimited in 2000 for $700 million, then bought back the company for a fraction of the price in 2002. The trip was arranged by Space Adventures in cooperation with the Russian Federal Space Agency and RSC Energia. Space Adventures also arranged the flights of the first two space tourists, Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth. Olsen and others said there was a possibility that he could fly on the October 2004 taxi mission.