Google’s Brin reserves rocket seat

NEW YORK (AP) – A company that sends wealthy tourists into space aboard Russian rockets announced Wednesday that it has a new client, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and a new plan for the first entirely private flight to the international space station.

Space Adventures Ltd. said Brin, a native of Moscow, had paid $5 million to reserve a seat on a future flight.

Just where and when the 35-year-old billionaire might fly is still up in the air. Since 2001, the company has sent five tourists to the space station, but it has been dreaming about other destinations, including a swing around the far side of the moon.

Brin didn’t appear at the company’s news conference at the Explorer’s Club in Manhattan, but he said in a statement that he considered his deposit an investment in the company and suggested he hadn’t decided whether to exercise his option to fly.

“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,” the statement said.

Google Inc. chief executive Eric Schmidt declined to comment, calling it a personal matter.

Space Adventures also announced Wednesday that it had reached an agreement to preserve its partnership with Russia, which had been indicating lately that its days in the space tourism business were numbered.

On each of its five previous missions, the Virginia-based company had tagged along aboard flights already scheduled by the Russians, who were willing to sell spare seats to raise cash.

Top Russian space officials, however, had expressed doubt that they could continue to offer seats, citing increased demand for trips to the space station.

The station’s crew is expected to increase from three to six astronauts in 2009, and once NASA retires the space shuttle in 2010 it will also be relying on Russia to get U.S. astronauts into space.

Space Adventures said it will deal with the demand crunch by chartering an entire space flight, just for itself, with space for two clients plus a Russian cosmonaut. Russia’s Federal Space Agency would still run the mission, but Space Adventures would pay for the trip and buy its own Soyuz spacecraft.

“The Soyuz to be used for this mission shall be a specially manufactured craft, separate from the other Soyuz vehicles designated for the transportation of the (space station) crews,” Alexey B. Krasnov, who heads Russia’s manned space program, said in a statement released by the company.

Krasnov said the private mission wouldn’t interfere with the Russian space program or other missions to the space station.

“On the contrary, it shall add flexibility and redundancy to our transportation capabilities,” he said.

The arrangement still needs to be approved by other nations involved in the running of the station.

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