American To Be Tested For Trip To ISS In Russia

SPACE TRAVEL

Commercial Astronaut Ready For Final Tests Ahead Of Trip To ISS

Dennis Tito exhibiting the levitating ability of a plane load of Greenbacks

Moscow (Interfax) April 4, 2001
The first commercial astronaut, Dennis Tito, who will join the Russian crew of a Soyuz TM, will go through comprehensive tests at the Gagarin cosmonauts training center as part of his preflight training program on April 9-10 before heading to the space station later this month.

The crew with which Tito will be launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome for a week-long flight to the ISS includes commander Talgat Musabaev and flight engineer Yuri Baturin.

Vasily Tsibliyev, who is deputy chief of the space training section at the Gagarin center, has told Interfax that Tito has prepared himself well for the flight, being physically fit and quite an asset to the crew.

However, Tsibliyev said, Tito's flight has not been finalized with NASA yet. But Tsibliyev said he is sure this purely political problem will be resolved within days, as there is too little time left before the launch of the crew.

Russia's Aviation Space Agency has told Interfax that NASA specialists have accepted as adequate Tito's ability to pay a short- term visit to the Russian segment of the ISS. However, they believe he is not ready for work according to the rigorous ISS schedule, and for this reason there can be no talk of any fully fledged scientific and technical activity for him on the station.

The Russian agency said working groups from the Russian agency, NASA, and the European Space Agency in March negotiated the medical and technical requirements and the training methods for such commercial flights to the ISS by non-professional astronauts.

The 60-year-old financier Tito graduated from an aerospace university in the U.S. and for five years dealt with unmanned space programs at NASA by taking part in the program of flights by remote- control interplanetary ships to Mars and Venus.

Subsequently, Tito formed his own company, one of the business lines of which was the application of space technologies. Initially, Tito planned to fly with a Russian crew to the Mir space station, which was dumped in March.

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