Permission for tourist Dennis Tito's first space flight to be mulled Friday

Administrator of the US National Aerospace Agency Daniel S. Goldin and Rosaviakosmos executive Yuri Koptev will be discussing the issue of the first-ever space tourist Dennis Tito taking part in a mission to the International Space Station during their telephone conversation due next Friday, sources in the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, the Stellar City, told RIA Novosti Tuesday. Russian specialists believe that Dennis Tito is prepared for the mission. Furthermore, he will be acting as a crew member with functions of "communication systems" engineer, rather than just "in the dummy capacity". Among other things, during flight, he will be monitoring and controlling the operations of the spaceship's radio and television communications with Earth and the ISS. On arrival at the station, he will within 6 days complete part of the work to photograph areas of Earth's surface and will video them. He will also answer questions communicated via the Internet and a communication system call-in, including a conversation with US young people. Nonetheless, the US insists he be barred from the mission, citing the fact that "he is inadequately trained for the mission, is flying at the wrong time (the construction of the station is in the initial stage and "no-one can be bothered with tourists") and the building nations have no adopted documents on selection and flights of non-professional astronauts." The American side believes these factors effectively compromise the mission crew's and permanent on-board expedition crew's safety. Tito is currently at the Baikonur launch site, with the crew preparing to head for the ISS April 28.

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