Google co-founder Sergey Brin books $5-million seat in space flight for 2011

12 June 2008

Space tourism is set to get a very famous traveller as Google co-founder Sergey Brin puts in $5 million for a possible foray above the earth's atmosphere in 2011. Moreover, the nascent industry may also get its own dedicated vehicle as space tourism firm Space Adventures aims to move beyond contracted seats on planned Russian spaceflights.

Space Adventures, a Virginia company that arranges passage for wealthy explorers to ride on Russian Soyuz rockets to the International Space Station (ISS), plans to buy a Soyuz flight all its own in 2011, with the option of buying more.

Brin, one of the investors in this project, is likely to be one of the two occupants on the first such flight scheduled three years later. He made a $5 million investment in the company that will serve as a deposit on a future flight.

Brin, president of technology at Google and one of the youngest billionaires in the world today, said, ''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 also a sponsor of the Google Lunar X Prize, a $25 million competition to land an unmanned craft on the moon.

In the past, the Space Adventures spot was a spare seat on a Soyuz mission that was headed for the station anyway. For the private Soyuz mission, Space Adventures will book two seats on the three-seat spacecraft, with a Russian commander taking the other seat. The mission will be scheduled so as not to interfere with the official flights of astronauts to and from the station, the company said.