Washington: Wealthy space tourists can take advantage of a new thrill soon.
The Russian Federal Space Agency (RFSA) and its booking agent, Space Adventures are offering a space walk while orbiting 400 kilometre above the Earth.
The price has been set at $35 million, according to the website of Space Adventures, a company outside Washington DC that arranges the trips.
The travel brochure on the Space Adventures website describes the basic journey like this: "Orbital (Price: $20,000,000). Spend one week at the International Space Station orbiting the Earth. Includes six months of intense training, roundtrip transportation to the ISS, and a week's lodging in space."
That's the basic 10-day trip that Daisuke Enomoto, the Japanese businessman, has purchased for a September flight on a Russian Soyuz craft to the space station.
He'll be the fourth paying customer to ride into space with the Russians.
However, for an added $15 million, future tourists will have the option of nearly doubling the time in space, to 16 to 18 days and spending 90 minutes outside the International Space Station (ISS).
Russian space officials gave the matter considerable thought and study before approving the idea, said director of the Russian-manned space flight department, Alexei Krasnov.
"We have come to the conclusion that subject to personal physical and psychological capabilities and with the completion of additional specific cosmonaut training, space flight participants could potentially perform an extra-vehicular activity (EVA),” he was quoted as saying in a Space Adventures press notice.
NASA, the US space agency that takes a dim view of private space tourism but tolerates it to help the Russians finance their space programme, said it had not been told about plans to expand the private offering.
NASA and the 14 other ISS international partners must approve of the space walk idea, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Private space walkers will have to spend an extra month after six months of basic training to prepare for the EVA, and will wear a Russian space suit, according to the Space.com report.
The tourists would exit and re-enter through the Russian portal on the ISS-not the NASA portal.
"It's the next logical step and one of the premier experiences of space flight," the travel agency's president and chief executive officer, Eric Anderson was quoted as saying by the Houston Chronicle on Saturday.
"We've had several potential clients, and previous clients express an interest in doing a space walk. It was really only a matter of time,” Anderson added.
A Russian cosmonaut would escort private sky walkers.
A number of retired astronauts are connected to the Space Adventures firm, including, Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, US astronauts Sam Durrance, Robert Gobson, Tom Jones, Byron Lichtenberg, Norm Thagard, Kathy Thornton, Pierre Thuot and Charles Walker, Owen Thornton and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev.
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