Let's Travel Amazing Places!: Space Tourists

The International Space Station

As of 2008, there have been six space tourists to the ISS. The tourists, or Spaceflight participants, have launched and have returned via Russian crew rotation missions on Soyuz spacecraft. In addition, the ISS has been the location for the first 'space wedding', during which, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, flying Expedition 7, marries Ekaterina Dmitrieva, who is in Texas at the time.

U.S. space tourist Richard Garriott, crew member of the 18th mission to the International Space Station (ISS), gestures prior to the launch of Soyuz-FG rocket at the Russian leased Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Sunday, Oct. 12, 2008. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

The most recent space spectator is Richard Garriott- an American computer game designer. He has fulfilled a childhood dream that has begun with the flight of his astronaut father, former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, a member of the Skylab 3 crew in 1973. The world’s latest high-flying and big-spending space tourist has left the earth on October 12, 2008 and has returned safely to Earth after spending 10 days aboard the orbiting International Space Station (ISS). Garriott is also a board member and investor in Space Adventures, the same company that has provided ISS access to a number of other affluent space tourists. He has spent some $30M to secure his seat on the Soyuz rocket before enjoying the resulting 10-day ISS excursion.

That is quite a fortune! Garriott, a 47-year-old multimillionaire from Austin, Texas, is the sixth paying space traveler and the first American to follow a parent into orbit.

All the six space tourists flew to and from the International Space Station on Soyuz spacecraft through the space tourism company, Space Adventures:

Dennis Tito (American): April 28 - May 6, 2001
Mark Shuttleworth (South African / British): April 25 - May 5, 2002
Gregory Olsen (American): October 1 - October 11, 2005
Anousheh Ansari (Iranian / American): September 18 - September 29, 2006
Charles Simonyi (Hungarian): April 7 - April 21, 2007
Richard Garriott (American): October 12 - October 23, 2008

Future space tourists

The following people are the possible future commercial passengers on Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS:

Vladimir Gruzdev (Russia) expects to fly in 2009. Gruzdev is a United Russia pro-presidential party member. The United Russia party may pay the estimated $25 million for the flight from the party funds. Gruzdev has had a medical examination and been given approval to begin the cosmonaut training program. Gruzdev previously participated in the Arktika 2007 mission, which placed a Russian flag on the seabed near the North Pole.

Charles Simonyi (Hungarian) is training for a second flight in spring 2009 aboard Soyuz TMA-14. He would be the first repeat space tourist. Backup is Esther Dyson.