Russia will send tourists to the International Space Station
The cost of such a trip could be around US$100 million – or less, for the first traveller
Russia is planning to send paying tourists to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time, an official from the country’s space industry said on Thursday.
“We are discussing the possibility of sending tourists on spacewalks,” Vladimir Solntsev, the head of Russian space company Energia, told Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda.
“Market analysts have confirmed this: wealthy people are ready to pay money for this,” Solntsev told the paper.
He said the cost of such a trip could be around US$100 million (80 million euros), “possibly less for the first tourist”.
The tourists will be able to “go out on a spacewalk and make a film, [or] a video clip”.
Energia, which was behind the launch of the first man in space Yuri Gagarin in 1961, is currently building a new module dubbed NEM-2 to transport tourists to the ISS.