STAR CITY (Moscow region). Feb 18 (Interfax-AVN) - It is too early for a space tourist to travel to the Cosmonaut Training Center and start preparing for a flight around the moon, head of the center Sergei Krikalyov told Interfax-AVN on Friday.
Earlier, the Space Adventures company announced that it had sold a ticket for the first commercial flight around the moon on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to a private individual for $150 million.
"If they plan to fly around the moon in 2015, it is too early for him to come. If such a task arises, the tourist will fly together with a professional and the training of the professional will be much more solid, take more time and depend on the specific spacecraft which the crew will use," Krikalyov said.
"When the program of the flight is compiled and the equipment ready, we will start training the professional in the first place and the traveler will apparently join in at the last stage," he said.