credit: Myasishchev Design Bureau/Flight / caption: Myasishchev's concept for air launched suborbital tourism
Sources at Russia's United Aircraft (UA) have informed Hyperbola that the Myasishchev Design Bureau is being absorbed into the state run aviation company, created in 2006, and its headquarters is to be bulldozed so the Russian Federal government can sell the land in central Moscow
Myasishchev had been involved in a space tourism feasibility study for an undisclosed Russian organisation but that has ended and all of its activities will now be focused on design work for UA with no more work on space related studies
The design bureau had been involved with the Space Adventures suborbital tourism venture when it was announced in February 2006
But by October 2006 another major partner in that tourism effort, investment company Prodea, had begun to sound less than firm on how the project might move forward
And then in February 2007 during a trip to the European spaceport in French Guiana where Federal Space Agency head Anatoly Perminov was present Flight was informed by the space chief that his agency had no involvement in the project
The work for the undisclosed Russian partner appeared to follow on from the Space Adventures study but since the October 2007 posting on Myasishchev's news website there has been total silence on the project
The design bureau had been involved with the Space Adventures suborbital tourism venture when it was announced in February 2006
But by October 2006 another major partner in that tourism effort, investment company Prodea, had begun to sound less than firm on how the project might move forward
And then in February 2007 during a trip to the European spaceport in French Guiana where Federal Space Agency head Anatoly Perminov was present Flight was informed by the space chief that his agency had no involvement in the project
The work for the undisclosed Russian partner appeared to follow on from the Space Adventures study but since the October 2007 posting on Myasishchev's news website there has been total silence on the project
on March 6, 2009 11:53 AM | Reply
No surprise there. Is it premature to say that space tourism is on it's way out (okay, Dennis Tito, a few other guys and a lady did have their holiday in space) without even going into full fruition? Was it just a hype, dissipating into thin air now recession has come?
on March 6, 2009 12:40 PM | Reply
I find it hard to believe that there will be any space tourism to the ISS after this year. Space Adventures more recent announcement about an entirely private Soyuz flight is nothing new, we wrote about it when it was first announced in July 2003 http://tinyurl.com/brjntl
on March 7, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply
Charles is going to pay 10 million more for his next flight on a soyuz - 35 million. SpaceX's dragon is for 7 passengers or 245 million a load at that rate. Granted there would be no place to stay if Bigelow doesn't launching BA330's. The U.S. is paying around 40 million a seat. I don't think we have to worry about it drying up if people and governments are willing to pay that much.