The world's first space tourist is expected blast off on April 30 on a so-called visit mission, along with Russian cosmonauts Talgat Musabayev and Yuri Baturin. The size of the contract has yet to been officially disclosed, but certain sources say it is around $20 million.

After arriving for his training at the Gagarin cosmonaut-training center Tito developed pneumonia and is now receiving treatment at the Defense Ministry hospital that examines and treats all military cosmonauts, Interfax learned at the center.

Another source reports that Tito is in satisfactory condition and after his recovery will be able to start training for his space flight. Experts from the training center are sure he will be able to go through the entire training process required for a brief mission to the ISS.

This visit mission is expected to be two weeks long. The mission is necessary to replace the Soyuz TM rescue vehicle that delivered the first long mission to the ISS in the persons of U.S. astronaut William Shepherd, and Russia's Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalyov on November 2. The spacecraft's six-month service life will have expired by then. The second long mission will fly to the ISS and replace the first on board a U.S. space shuttle at the end of March.

Tito, 60, graduated from a U.S. aerospace university and for five years worked on unmanned space programs at NASA, and was also involved in the program of exploratory missions to Mars and Venus. He later set up his own company, which among other things applies space technologies.

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Moscow (Interfax) September 1, 2000
Dennis Tito, the first space tourist, will start training to fly to the Russian Mir space station in two weeks, head of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center Pyotr Klimuk has said in an interview with Interfax.