Avi Blizovsky
Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/houstonshop.html
A Houston space goods store is helping the Russian space agency locate potential space tourists who could pay $20 million for the flight. This is the amount that the Californian businessman Dennis Tito paid for a week-long trip to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz rocket last year, and the South African Mark Athelworth - in April this year.
However, the lead singer of the band An-Sync, Lance Bays, had to cancel his similar program scheduled for October this year because his financiers missed several payment deadlines.
The budget-strapped Russian space program is making tremendous efforts to finance its part in the construction of the International Space Station with the money that comes from tourists, and the store in Houston is among those helping them. "We're just spreading the word about the possibility," says store manager Diana Steele Justice. "If you have the money, the time and can stand the training, you can certainly go."
Vladimir Fishel, the vice president of the Russian space program commented that some rich people can pay for the pleasure, but until now the search for them has been through senior officials of the space agency, but marketing could help add encouragement to these people.
This store sells a few other things cheaper than a $20 million space flight. Among other things, an exact replica of the American wing of the International Space Station is sold there. The price is 2.5 million dollars. And a little more popular objects - a prototype of a space suit used in the Apollo moon landings ($7,500) and a zero-gravity flight for $5,400.
