by Carol Pinchefsky with G.B. Leatherwood

In a hastily arranged teleconference on Friday, 3 April 2009, Space Adventures president and CEO Eric Anderson laid out some new developments for the company, the only one in the world that has arranged for private citizens to travel to the International Space Station, starting with Dennis Tito in 2001.

“The second time around” usually refers to marriages, love affairs, and attempts to finish what one started.

What is the next best thing to going into space? Being next in line for a trip.

In sports, coming in second is almost as bad as finishing last. First place wins the gold medal, the blue ribbon, the biggest trophy, and the bottle of champagne. Second place doesn’t.

Orbital spaceflight broker Space Adventures announced that Dr. Charles Simonyi, the fifth paid spaceflight participant, will be returning to the International Space Station, making him their first customer to take a second trip.

Eric Anderson, CEO and president of Space Adventures, announced at a press conference today that Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, the world’s premier Internet search engine, will be Space Adventures’ next paying spaceflight participant.

According to an article in The China Post Roskosmos chairman Anatoly Perminov says Russia will be halting their space tourism programme after 2010. Because of the expansion of the International Space Station ( ISS), the seats available for tourists will go to permanent crew.

by Carol Pinchefsky

According to the below press release, a Japanese entrepreneur will be heading toward the International Space Station some time in September; no word on the exact date. A woman, Anousheh Ansari, has joined the backup crew. There is also no news on if she will be traveling in her own right at a later time.