Space Adventures announced today that Charles Simonyi, the company’s most recent client, has won medical approval from Russian authorities for a future Soyuz flight. Space Adventures did not disclose, though, when Simonyi might fly, saying only that “More details regarding Dr. Simonyi’s scheduled launch date, commencement of training and specific mission objectives will be announced in the coming months.”
So will Simonyi be the next orbital tourist after Daisuke “Dice-K” Enomoto, who is scheduled to fly to the ISS next month? Or will it be Enomoto’s backup, Anousheh Ansari? SPACE.com profiles Ansari today, describing a person who wants to fly into space herself, even if that means waiting until 2008. The logjam is based in part on Russian plans to fly a Malaysian guest cosmonaut to the ISS next year, but the report also claims that Simonyi will fly to the ISS next spring, something that is less certain now than when Simonyi’s contract was first announced this spring. She’s not picky about how she gets to space, either: her company, Prodea (which is also backed by her husband and brother-in-law), is funding development of the Explorer suborbital vehicle that Space Adventures plans to operate, while she also has “seats reserved” on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo.
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