Google co-founder Brin books space flight

Google co-founder Sergey Brin wants to go to space and has made a $5 million down payment to book a seat on a private space flight with Space Adventures, the space tourism company said.

The full price he will pay for the trip to the International Space Station is likely to be more than $35 million, Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson said.

At a news conference in New York, Mr Anderson announced the creation of an Orbital Mission Explorers Circle of members who will each contribute $5 million to help finance the company's first private mission to the space station.

Previously Space Adventures has bought seats on Russian space agency missions to the orbiting ISS. It now plans to build its own Soyuz rocket for private missions that could start as soon as the second half of 2011.

The company aims to send one mission a year to the space station, with two clients on each flight, Anderson said.

Mr Brin, 34, and Larry Page, 35, made history in their 20s when they set up the Google search engine and they are now billionaires. Mr Brin was born in Moscow to two mathematicians who emigrated to the US when he was six years old.

The $5 million down payment gives members first option on a seat on the mission. Mr Anderson said he was looking for five more wealthy people to be founder members of the Explorers Circle.

But he said private space exploration shouldn't be just for the very rich. His company offers zero-gravity flights that cost under $4,000 and would like to give away a seat on an orbital space flight in a lottery or competition.

"It has been very much a vision of Space Adventures to enable the common person who may have a few dollars to spend for a chance to go to space to buy such a chance and then to possibly win it," Mr Anderson said.

"We've talked to television companies about reality-type shows, we've talked to lotteries, we've talked to sponsors. I am confident that this will happen at some point in the future, maybe in time for a 2011 mission, maybe afterwards."

While the US only flies professional astronauts, specially trained tourists and other space travellers have been able to fly to the station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

So far four US citizens and a South African have travelled to the ISS. Richard Garriott, a computer game developer and son of a former Nasa astronaut, will be the next client to visit the space station in October, paying $35 million.