Space travel firm plans its next giant leaps

[soulxtc]

With third client now in orbit, Space Adventures looks beyond space station.  This week’s trip to the international space station serves as the big payoff for millionaire passenger Greg Olsen — but it also represents a big payday for Space Adventures, the Arlington, Va.-based firm that arranged three multimillion-dollar trips to the station and is planning for much, much more.  In the seven years since its founding, the privately held company has built a business out of sending a select few clients to the orbital frontier, and putting many more through spaceflight experiences on Earth — ranging from tours of Russian space facilities to zero-gravity flights.  Space Adventures' next giant leap would be finding some ultra-deep-pocketed clients who are willing to pay $100 million a seat to fly around the moon and back in a souped-up version of the same Soyuz craft the Russians used to send Olsen to the space station. It may sound like pure science fiction — but Eric Anderson, the company's president and chief executive officer, says the venture has a good chance of moving forward.

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