"NASA's 1996 discovery of possible Martian fossils inside a meteorite launched interest in Antarctica as a space destination," commented Eric Anderson, President and CEO of Space Adventures. "We are extremely excited about bringing this opportunity to the world's adventure tourists in the tradition of our other 'Steps To Space' expeditions."

The objective of this expedition is to find more Martian meteorites, which could contain further evidence of extraterrestrial, fossilized life. The ideal scenario would be to find a sample and transport it back to the laboratory with its ice casing intact. Meteorites collected will be used and studied by NASA or other research organization.

The 14-day voyage was created in partnership with Adventure Network International (ANI), the only organization in the world providing private-sector services to the Antarctic interior since 1985. The expedition will be led by an ANI field guide with a resident geologist accompanying the group through most of the journey.

The seven-member Space Adventures "team" will begin their journey on December 1, 2000 in Chile where they will depart, by aircraft, to Patriot Hills, Antarctica.

From there the group will travel by plane to the Thiel Mountains, only 300 nautical miles from the geographical South Pole. Here they will spend 7 days searching for meteorites and exploring the terrain before departing home.