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Russians to Take Pop Idol to the Stars
Friday, July 19, 2002
(17:48)
By Dmitry Kubikov
Reuters

N’Sync’s Lance Bass.
Image Credit: The Associated Press.

According to some reports, talks are currently in progress concerning the medical examination of Australian Lilly Kreig. Also, it has become known, that a member of Russian pop band Na-Na is eager to go into orbit too, but such dreams are probably well beyond Russian singers.

Singer with popular US pop band N’Sync Lance Bass has been officially approved as a potential space tourist to go into orbit on board the Soyuz TMA spaceship in October this year. However, it is a bit too early to say whether namely Bass will be the third space tourist in the history of Russian space navigation (after Dennis Tito, and Mark Shuttleworth) – the price for the space ticket may prove too high even for his sponsors to handle.

Russian aerospace agency (Rosaviakosmos, or RAKA) has officially endorsed the candidacy of the US boy band singer Bass for the vacant seat on a flight aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA space ship in October this year. According to the representative of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Mike Braukas, the US has already received an official letter from Russia, confirming RAKA’s decision to enlist the 23-year-old Bass in a group of potential space tourists to visit the International Space Station in October this year.

Bass has already undergone all the necessary medical tests, and doctors say he is physically fit for the journey. In May this year the singer arrived in Moscow from New York for final tests. The singer passed the test in the altitude chamber and the medical centrifuge test with flying colours.

''All the tests have been passed, blood samples have been taken for analysis, and now we’ll start with the serious training,'' Bass reported. The singer does not doubt that it will be him that goes into orbit this autumn – he has already started studying Russian. ''I am flying with a Russian and a Belgian. So far, I communicate with them through interpreters, but on the flight I will talk Russian,'' Bass assured the press.
(More: Gazeta.ru News Source)
2002 © Reuters, Ltd.

Dan