With Google suitably established as planet Earth’s most prominent search engine, Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin is looking to push the frontier of personal search by investing in a once-in-a-lifetime trip into outer space.
Google co-founder slaps down $5 million to reserve a seat on a future international space station visit. Image: Space Adventures Ltd.
More pointedly, Brin has slapped down a cool $5 million USD with Virginia-based space tourism company Space Adventures Ltd. in order to reserve a seat on a future trip to the international space station (ISS).
Should the trip actually take place, it will become the first purely private journey to the orbiting research station, which travels around the Earth at around 27,000kph and completes an average of 16 orbits per day.
While a confirmed flight date has not yet been issued to the 35-year-old billionaire and native of Moscow, Space Adventures Ltd. certainly has plenty of ISS experience to draw upon, having already sent five space tourists to the station since 2001.
The company also has 5-year aspirations to expand its travel itinerary to include a slingshot flight consisting of a full swing around the dark side of the moon. Current seat prices for the proposed moon flight are hovering at around $100 million USD.
“I am a big believer in the exploration and commercial development of the space frontier and am looking forward to the possibility of going into space,” commented Brin via a written statement delivered at a Space Adventures Ltd company news conference.
Although the final price Brin is likely to pay remains an unknown, computer game designed Richard Garriott, who is due to become the next Space Adventure tourist this coming October, paid some $35 million USD for his private seat on the forthcoming Russian Soyuz mission.
Garriott, famous for the development of games such as Ultima, City of Heroes, and Tabula Rasa, is the vice chairman of Space Adventures and also the son of retired NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, who also sits on the advisory board of Space Adventures. During his time with NASA, Owen Garriott served onboard Skylab in the ’70s and Spacelab-1 in the ‘80s.
Finalisation of Brin’s trip to the international space station will also be reliant on approval from other mission-contributing nations.
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