Google's Brin Books Flight to Space Station

Google co-founder Sergey Brin is turning space tourist, plunking down a $5 million deposit with Space Adventures for passage to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket in 2011, reports the New York Times. Space Adventures is planning to buy two of the three seats aboard the mission, whose sole agenda would be tourism.

“From a passenger point of view, you wouldn’t be a fifth wheel on the flight to the space station,” said a Space Adventures consultant. “It’s a move toward a more mature commercial space travel industry.” Though five tourists have ventured into space, future flights could be in jeopardy as Russian missions become more crowded when the ISS crew expands from three to six. (More Google stories.)