Google co-founder Sergey Brin is about to join an extremely short list of space tourists, according to reports. The search engine-kingpin just dropped a $5 million dollar "investment" on the company Space Adventures, which all but guarantees him a seat on the outfit's next flight in 2011. The trip aboard the Russian Soyuz rocket will take Brin to the ISS in the first-ever private flight to the station (Ubuntu head Mark Shuttleworth has made the trip, though not on a private mission). The company stresses that the ride will be less about tourism and more about commercial exploration, with passengers bringing aboard experiments and taking part in flight operations. Now the only riddle left to solve is whether the last Cylon is Brin or Bezos.

[Via Gear Diary]

While there's long since been ways to get a piece of your mind (or your best Photoshop effort) launched into space, getting your person up there isn't exactly feasible if your pay stub isn't stamped by NASA. Now, however, Space Adventures is looking to hoist a pair of untrained civilians into space in 2008 and 2009 aboard a Soyuz craft, and the firm will soon be selling seats for the low, low price of $100 million apiece. The Lunar Mission will eventually bring you "to the other side of the moon," and while we're sure the itinerary is quite detailed considering the price of admission, the firm isn't dolling out too much more until you prove your bank account is stocking the required dough.

[Thanks, Yossi]

With relative paupers taking jaunts into space at a pretty regular clip these days, it certainly would be no financial burden for the world's richest nerd to indulge his astronautical fantasies, and now a Russian cosmonaut aboard the International Space Station claims that Microsoft founder and Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire Bill Gates may be planning to do just that. In an interview broadcast from the ISS, Fyodor Yurchikhin repeated the assertions of current space tourist and former Gates co-worker Charles Simonyi that Mr. Microsoft himself "is also preparing to visit space," although Space Adventures -- which organizes these indulgent expeditions -- says that it has had no contact with Sir Bill so far. So in the absence of any official word from the Gates camp, we can only look to the man's personality for hints as to whether or not this fantastic voyage will take place -- and seeing how there's already been an iPod in orbit, we're pretty sure that Bill won't sleep soundly until all the world's gadget blogs and magazine covers are plastered with glossy pictures of a space Zune.

[Via Slashdot]

It looks like we're in the midst of a space race of a different sort, with no less than three recent contests promising to take would-be space cadets into varying degrees of orbit for free, although it seems that the winners may be in for more than a case of space sickness. Our cautionary tale comes courtesy of Oracle and Space Adventures, who awarded a suborbital spaceflight to one lucky winner, Brian Emmett, only to have him find out he'd have to pay taxes on the $138,000 value of the round-trip flight, forcing him to give up his seat in favor of someone with deeper pockets. While its potential tax burden is unclear, Microsoft is forging ahead with its "Vanishing Point" space contest, set to announce the winner tomorrow, who'll also get a taste of some suborbital action. Those looking to hitch a ride on the cheap aren't entirely out of luck just yet, however, with New Scientist and Audi today announcing their own contest that'll run through April 30th. To enter, you just have to tell 'em what you think is the world's best patented invention, with one lucky winner set to be shot 62 miles above the Earth, decked out in their own personalized suborbital flight suit no less. Those of us on this side of the pond are unfortunately out of luck on this one though, with the contest strictly for U.K. residents only.

Read - Space.com, "No Free Ride to Space for Contest Winners"
Read - The Register, "Microsoft prepares to shoot geek into space"
Read - New Scientist's "Win a trip into space"

[Thanks, Matt]