STAR CITY, Russia — Mark Shuttleworth, the second would-be space tourist to pay his way into the cosmos, took another step closer to fulfilling his dream Friday.
Joined by his fellow crew members, Italian Roberto Vettori and Russian Yuri Gidzenko, at the Star City space training center outside Moscow, Shuttleworth had to take a training test that a state space commission had set for him.
But the native South African felt confident that, after months of thorough training, all would go well. Shuttleworth said that it was "a great privilege after many months of training to be sitting here with this great crew."
The crew is due to blast off around April 25 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Shuttleworth is following in the footsteps of American Dennis Tito, the first so-called space tourist to pay for a trip into orbit.
Meanwhile, a Russian lawmaker said Friday that he backed the idea of sending Barri Alibasov, the founder of the Russian pop group Na-Na, into space to record a song.
"Now that foreign tourists are paying to go to space in our Russian spacecraft, we could become pioneers in such a thing as the recording of Russian songs or music in space," said Boris Reznik, a member of Russia's lower house of parliament, according to the Interfax news agency.
Reznik said the revenue from such a performance would pay for the cost of the flight, with money left over for charity, Interfax reported.