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At a fee of $980 dollars a year, one can join the Spaceflight Club at Space Adventures where this fee can be set aside as credit toward the price of a future spaceflight.  And at $100m per seat to go to the moon, apparently the recession has not hit the type of clientele that Space Adventures is dealing with. And news has it that a seat to the ISS may be open for this upcoming September--which was supposed to be occupied by a Kazakh cosmonaut.  "The kind of person…who has indicated an interest in going to space is a long-term thinker. Someone who has had a life dream of going to space is not going to let an economic downturn---even if it's a longer one than we would have hoped—change their objective," company president Eric Anderson said .

But Space Adventures President Anderson said that possibly the seat may be available to either Space Adventures or one of the professional Russian cosmonaut.  Next in line are Esther Dyson and Nik Halik as backups for Charles Simonyi and Richard Garriott but so far no decision has been made. But still pursuing plans for a "dedicated flight to the ISS" in 2012 even with the recession in progress, there are still potential customers—such as Simonyi-- who are presently paying the high fee of $35m due to high demand and inflation for long-term future trips in space. But right now there are very few flight opportunities going up for 2010 or even 2011.

With Space Adventures refusing to offer space bargains to potential clients because of the recession,  they are still saying that business is good. Part of this is that Google co-founder Sergey Brin is one of the two passengers going in a dedicated Soyuz flight to the ISS in 2011 that was announced last June? Apparently Space Adventures states nothing formal has been stated by Brin as of yet. But he has paid $5m for a deposit to reserve a future orbital flight position and also to join the "select group of private space tourists." None of this is "new" news, but Brin has the option to fly to orbit with preferential access to mission seats, or sell the seat to another private astronaut.

“I am a big believer in the exploration and commercial development of the space frontier, and am looking forward to the possibility of going into space,” said Mr. Brin. “Space Adventures helped open the space frontier to private citizens and thus pave the way for the personal spaceflight industry. The Orbital Mission Explorers Circle enables me to make an immediate investment while preserving the option to participate in a future spaceflight.”

“Space Adventures has established the Orbital Mission Explorers Circle to build a definitive consortium of future private space explorers who share a lifetime goal of orbital spaceflight or the investment therein. Space Adventures has initially created six ‘Founding Explorer’ positions in the Orbital Mission Explorers Circle, each of whom will have priority access to participate in future orbital space missions,” said Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures.