Space Adventures Books Junket

Dec 30, 2008
By Frank Morring, Jr.




Space Adventures, the Virginia firm that arranges for well-heeled tourists to fly to the International Space Station on Russian Soyuz vehicles, is booking a "VIP Launch Tour" for slightly less well-heeled tourists who want to see Charles Simonyi off on its second orbital trip.

For $16,000-$24,000 a person, the company will provide a four-day tour to the Baikonur Cosmodrome - with five-star layovers in Moscow, a tour of the cosmonaut training center in Star City and a private jet to the cosmodrome in Kazakhstan - for the Soyuz TM-14 launch in March. Software pioneer Simonyi, who flew to the station on Soyuz TM-10 in 2007, says "the experience was so unique, so amazing, that I want to be able to absorb it and enjoy it at a different level, as only a second-time mission would allow," according to a Space Adventures brochure.

The first time cost Simonyi a reported $20 million, but the price has gone up. In October computer-game designer Richard Garriott paid a reported $30 million to visit the station, and NASA will pay $47 million a seat to send astronauts there after the space shuttle retires.

Soyuz on Baikonur Cosmodrome pad photo: Arianespace