Russia Announces No Joint Tourism After 2009

It seems they have made it official. The Russian Space Agency has announced that after 2009, they will not transport any more tourists to the International Space Station during their missions.

This is of no surprise, though, because the ISS will soon be operating with a crew of 6 instead of the current crew of 3. With the space shuttle out of service, the Russians are going to need all of the seating they can get to being up fresh crew members.

So what will this mean for Space Adventures, who has been arranging these visits? They will only be able to take two more tourists up before the deadline, but they have already planned for this. They arranged months ago for a private launch of a dedicated Soyuz vehicle after their usual access to the Soyuz missions has been terminated. So this is not the end of ISS tourism yet!

Progress: 3.93%  Flight Time: 0:05:54