$30 Million Still Gets You to Space as a Tourist

Today marks the 50th year anniversary of the day the space satellite Sputnik was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union. That day the space race was on.

These days, if you have the money to do it, it’s not uncommon to travel to space on a private venture. That’s what Richard Garriot is going to do next year. He’ll be the 6th private citizen to have this ultimate get-a-away experience.

Garriot’s heading to the International Space Station (ISS) under a deal made between the Federal Space Agency of Russia, and Space Adventures, a private American space tourism company. In a nutshell, a Russian rocket will take Garriot to the space station, the American company arranged for this to happen and Garriot is picking up the tab. This is to be a working vacation, though. While at (ISS) he’s going to be doing experiments for private research companies.

If the name Garriot sounds familiar, think Owen Garriot. Owen Garriot, is a retired NASA astronaut who spent time aboard Skylab and Spacelab-1 is his dad. Next year’s trip will be the first time an American astronaut’s kid has headed to space. The Russian’s beat the Americans on this account. Sergei Volkov, the son of Alexander Volkov, a cosmonaut, is a cosmonaut will welcome Garriot to ISS. You can read more details about Garriot’s upcoming trip on Space.com.