MOSCOW. July 25 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) is not yet ready to offer a spacewalk to space tourists, the agency said in a statement on its official web-site.
"In connection with several media reports quoting head of the agency's manned programs department Alexei Krasnov as saying that a non-professional tourist may make spacewalks, we must say that the price for such a service has not yet been determined by Roscosmos," the statement reads.
"We have only discussed the possibility of making a spacewalk by a non-professional and the set of requirements to him for accomplishing such a mission," it says.
"One of the future space flight participants would like to make a spacewalk. But as of today he has not obtained permissions from specialists," the statement says.
A spokesman for the Cosmonauts Training Center earlier told Interfax-Military News Agency that Japanese space tourist Daisuke Enomoto expressed his desire to make a spacewalk in a Russian space suit during his flight to the International Space Station in September 2006. However, the flight's organizers believe that such a service exceeds the scope of services covered by the regular space flight price of $20 million. As a result, the parties failed to agree on including the spacewalk in the flight program.
Marketing of space tourist flights on Russian Soyuz spacecraft is handled by the Space Adventures company.
Roscosmos also commented on the initiative of the Energia space rocket corporation to organize space tourist flights to Moon for $100 million.
"Speaking about tourist flights to Moon, this proposal was made by Energia leader Nikolai Sevastyanov at a news conference in New York in 2005, and he set the price for such a flight at $100 million. At the moment Roscosmos does not consider it possible to confirm or deny the chances to realize such a flight by a tourist and the price set by the Energia leadership," the statement reads.
Enomoto, a 34-year-old Japanese businessman, was reported to have started training in Zvyozdny outside Moscow.
U.S. nationals Dennis Tito, launched into space in 2001, and Gregory Olsen (2005), as well as South Africa's Mark Shuttleworth (2002) paid about $20 million each for their space flights aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes was launched to the ISS this spring. According to unofficial sources, his flight cost Brazil about $12 million. However, he was a professional astronaut rather than a space tourist. He had undergone a complete training program at a NASA center and in Zvyozdny.