Energiya is 38 percent owned by the Russian government and is the majority shareholder in MirCorp. Tourists who are both wealthy and healthy and have the time to train for the trip could travel to Mir with MirCorp, but that would not be the focus of the business, the company said. MirCorp said its main goal was to open Mir to clients such as drug companies or metals businesses looking to use the micro-gravity conditions in space to learn how to perfect their products on Earth. The platform also could be used as a base for repairing space satellites and beaming live color images of the Earth to the Internet. For those willing to pay to go as tourists, the main impediment is the training required to prepare for life in space, MirCorp president Jeffrey Manber said.
Space is something serious.
Potential space tourists must be mentally, physically and psychologically fit enough to cope with the experience. Mir has been flying without a crew since August, and heavily indebted Russia had said it would abandon the station next month unless private investors came up with funding. Still Orbiting MirCorp was formed in December in an effort to keep the orbiting platform alive. Under the lease agreement, Russian researchers would be allowed to use a certain percentage of Mir at all times at no extra cost, Manber said. Mir is orbiting about 200 miles above the Earth.