Ticket prices are going up for a trip to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz spaceship, a US space tourism firm said Wednesday.

 

The cost of those trips has increased from 25 million US dollars earlier this year to 30 million dollars, said Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures. Trips planned in 2008 and 2009 will cost 40 million dollars.

 

"It's mostly because of the fallen dollar," said Anderson.

 

A US dollar currently is worth about 25 1/2 Russian rubles, compared with 32 rubles in 2002.

 

The Virginia-based firm Space Adventures brokers the trips with Russia's space agency.

 

It will launch two space tourists to the ISS during separate Russian missions in 2008 and 2009, one of which may include the first private spacewalk, said Anderson.

 

The space tourists flying in the two new seats likely would be an American and an Asian, Anderson added.

 

Currently, about a dozen prospective space tourists are in the process of reserving flights to the space station.

 

(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2007)