Space Adventures, a Virginia company that arranges passage for wealthy explorers to ride on Russian Soyuz rockets to the International Space Station, They are now planning to buy a Soyuz flight all its own in 2011, with the option of buying more.

One of the people onboard the 2011 flight will be Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google. He made a $5 million investment in the company that will serve as a deposit on a future flight.

Space Adventures, the only company that sends tourists to space, has sent five of them so far. But its continued ability to provide these orbital experiences has been a subject of speculation recently.

In April, Vitaly Lopota, the president of Energia, the Russian spacecraft company, said that he was no fan of space tourism and that his nation flew private explorers to make up for financial shortfalls.

“We have built the I.S.S. not for space tourists but for serving the needs of the people of Earth,” he said.

Anatoly Perminov, the head of the Russian space agency, has said repeatedly that the seats for tourists could disappear in 2010, when the size of the station crew expands to six from three and requires more of the available seats on the Soyuz.

Space Adventures has seats reserved for flights to the space station this October and April 2009. Clients have paid $20 million to $40 million for their trips. Source : Nytimes