Space Adventures chief executive Eric Anderson told the media today that if the expected flight of a Kazakh cosmonaut does not go ahead on 30 September this year onboard Soyuz TMA 16 then one of his company’s customers might go to the International Space Station instead; but there is also the possiblity of a Russian cosmonaut going to the ISS
Spaceflight participants have to undergo months of training and so the Kazakh situation would have to come to a head very quickly in order for any Space Adventures customer to sign on the dotted line and have sufficient training. Unless the Russian authorities are happy for a previous Space Adventures customer’s backup customer, who would have had months of some training already, to take the open seat. Anderson named Ester Dyson and Nik Halik as potential candidates
Anderson also reported that the company was in discussions with two potential customers for the mooted private Soyuz TMA flight to the ISS but instead of the latter half of 2011 target date for the flight Anderson now gave a 2012 date. Bill Harwood asked what would have been Hyperbola’s question, and that was, can the Russian space industry deliver five Soyuz in one year? They now have to produce four of the spacecraft a year for the expanded ISS crew of six instead of what has been the normal two and Anderson said he expected they could build a fifth, and by 2012
I guess we’ll know either way for both trips fairly soon
