Russian space officials said on Friday they may not be able to continue launching space tourists to the International Space Station after the crew size aboard the orbiting laboratory increases from three to six in 2010, according to the Associated Press.
“We will continue flying tourists to the international space station in accordance with the existing programs, but we may have problems with it starting from 2010 because of planned increase of the ISS’ crew,” said Anatoly Perminov, chief of the Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos.
This could be bad news for Reston, Virginia-based Space Adventures, which has already flown five wealthy private citizens to the station. Software guru Richard Garriott, who is scheduled to fly in October, would not be affected by the change.
Meanwhile, Agence France Presse reports that Russia is appealing to its ISS partners to continue using the station until 2020, longer than originally planned. Station construction has fallen behind schedule; Russia will not complete installation of its ISS research module until 2015.
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