SEATTLE, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Aerospace company Boeing says it's joined with a private spaceflight marketing firm to sell seats for future spaceflights in the company's space capsule.
Space Adventures in Virginia will market passenger seats on commercial flights aboard the Boeing Crew Space Transportation-100 spacecraft, being designed for travel to the International Space Station as well as other future private space stations, SPACE.com reported Wednesday.
Tickets could go to space tourists, individual companies or other non-government groups, as well as U.S. federal agencies other than NASA, Boeing said.
"We want to expand beyond flying astronauts just to the ISS," Brewster Shaw, vice president and general manager of Boeing's space exploration division, said. "Very few people have made it to orbit of our species -- probably a little over 500 out of 6 or 7 billion people. That's not enough. We want to see many more have that opportunity."
Seven spaceflight participants have flown on missions contracted by Space Adventures to the International Space Station.
The two companies have yet to set a price per seat on the Boeing capsule, but did say it will be competitive with the current Russian launches on Soyuz spacecraft used by Space Adventures.
The last passenger trip to the International Space Station -- the October 2009 trip of Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte -- cost about $40 million, Space Adventures officials said.
