Space Adventures, a Virginia company that arranges flights for wealthy explorers to ride on Russian Soyuz rockets to the International Space Station, plans to buy a Soyuz itself in 2011.
A new investor is likely to occupy one of the two available seats on Space Adventures’ 2011 flight – Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google has made a $5 million investment in the company that will serve as a deposit on a future flight.
Space Adventures plans to announce the flight and Mr. Brin’s participation in a news conference Wednesday morning at the Explorers Club in New York. Mr. Brin, who is president of technology at Google, said in a Space Adventures statement, "I am a big believer in the exploration and commercial development of the space frontier, and am looking forward to the possibility of going into space."
Google is a sponsor of the Google Lunar X Prize, a $25 million competition to land an unmanned craft on the moon. Space Adventures, the only company that sends tourists to space, has sent five since they began their private operation in 2001. But its continued ability to provide these orbital experiences has been a subject of speculation recently.