According to The Associated Press, Eric Anderson, who is the president and CEO of Space Adventures, said, “It’s mostly because of the fallen dollar." Anderson went on to say that the U.S. dollar is valued at about 25.5 Russian rubles, while in 2002 it was at about 32 rubles.

Space Adventures, Ltd. sets up trips for space tourists through the Russian Federal Space Agency, commonly called Roskosmos or RKA. The Russian space agency is headquartered in Moscow, with its operations center in Star City. The private space exploration company Space Adventures was formed in 1998. It is based in Vienna, Virginia, United States.

According to the Interfax news agency, Space Adventures has confirmed two space tourists for trips aboard the Soyuz spaceship in the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009. Already, five wealthy people have traveled to the space station via Russia’s spaceships. The first one, California businessman Dennis Tito, in 2001, helped to publicize Space Adventures as a viable, but expensive, way to get into space.

The second, third, and fourth space tourists were, respectively,  South African Mark Shuttleworth, American Gregory Olsen, and Iranian-American Anousheh Ansari.

The last private-funded person to hitch a ride aboard Soyuz was Hungarian-American businessman Charles Simonyi. For additional information on Simonyi and his space journey, go to the iTWire article “Charles Simonyi: software pioneer, aviator, and space tourist”.

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