MirCorp, the company formed by RSC Energia and a consortium of American businessmen, is set to take its first paying space tourist to the Mir Space Station, according to this BBC News article. MirCorp will be holding a live press conference about the mission on Monday, June 19, at their website at http://www.mirstation.com/.

Energiya, a space technology company, and Gold & Appel, a holdings firm, recently established a joint venture, MirCorp, whose purpose is to commercialise the orbiting space station, Mir.

After many months of 'on-again, off-again' rumours that the MIR space station could be maintained in orbit as a private business facility if some tens of millions of dollars of new investment could be raised, it appears that this is about to happen.

Space.com runs with an article titled, "Wanna Be A Space Tourist?" at:

In a Mobile, Alabama Register editorial titled poorly, "Mars failures may have influenced," are the seeds of discontent that Americans feel towards a spectator "space program."

The Space Transportation Association based in Washington DC is one of the organisations putting most effort into changing official attitudes to space tourism, having been responsible for such historic steps as initiating and realising the historic NASA/STA joint study: General Public Space Travel and Tourism and holding the first space tourism conference in the USA (see below).

Dole Food Products Inc, the world's largest fresh fruit company, is offering tickets for a sub-orbital space flight to winners of a sweep-stake it is organising.

Beal Aerospace's recent problems are covered in an Associated Press article, available at href=http://www.express-news.net/auth/ennews/ap/texas/d0613.html.

Under the heading "Daimler-Chrysler becomes biggest shareholder in Spacehab Inc", _Space News_ reported (August 23, p 16) that the company has increased its shareholding in Spacehab Inc (which owns and operates habitable modules that fly on space shuttle flights) from 1% purchased in 1995 to 11.5%. This makes Daimler-Chrysler the largest shareholder in Spacehab Inc. and will give it more experience of crewed operations in space. This matches the company's role as prime contractor for the European Space Agency's module on the International Space Station.

The 2nd International Symposium on Space Tourism took place in Bremen from April 21-23, organised by Professor Uwe Apel of Bremen Technical University as Chair of the Program Committee, and Hartmut Mueller of Space Tours Gmbh as Chair of the Host Committee. Among the 26 papers presented, several are destined to become recognised as 'classic' papers in the field, establishing an important new element of accepted wisdom among professionals in the field, or creating what will be seen as a milestone in the future.