Russia Backing Out Of Space Tourism?

Despite pioneering the "newspace" movement (with the help of Space Adventures), it looks as if the nation responsible for getting us into space has decided to push space tourism to the wayside--at least for now.

(Physorg.com) "It has to do with international agreements that stipulate that from 2009 the (ISS) crew must be made up of six people if Japanese and European scientific modules are launched," said Roskosmos chief Anatoly Perminov.

"In this case there will be no room for space tourists," Perminov told a news conference, adding that space tourism making use of Russian vessels and the ISS would therefore be "rather problematic".

"I'm afraid that from 2009, tourism as we see it today may be discontinued," he said.

With the space shuttle scheduled to retire early, many nations are looking towards Russia to transport their astronauts to and from the International Space Station (or ISS), hence the reason for placing space tourism on the back burner.

While this may be a setback for Space Adventures (which currently is the only company ferrying passengers), hopefully Bigelow Aerospace can provide them with more options in the future (not to mention Galactic Suite).



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