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Space Adventures Announces Exclusive Marketing Agreement With Travel Agency, JTB Corp.

Posted on: Thursday, 18 August 2005, 15:00 CDT

TOKYO, Aug. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Space Adventures, Ltd., the world's leading space experiences company, announced today a partnership with Tokyo-based travel agency, JTB Corp., to exclusively market Space Adventures' diverse range of experiences in Japan. The company, which organized spaceflights for the world's first private space explorers, American businessman Dennis Tito and the "First African in Space" Mark Shuttleworth, disclosed the details of the agreement during a press conference.

"We have received thousands of requests from around the world, many from Japan, for more information on opportunities available today for space tourism," said Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures. "Space Adventures pioneered commercial space travel and we look forward to working closely with JTB in providing accessibility of our programs to the Japanese people."

JTB will market all of Space Adventures' unique programming including the recently announced mission to the moon, called DSE-Alpha. This spaceflight is the first in a series of lunar missions to be featured in Space Adventures' Deep Space Expeditions program. DSE-Alpha will utilize the robust Russian Soyuz spacecraft, piloted by a cosmonaut, and could launch as early as 2008. Two commercial seats are available priced at $100,000,000 (USD) each.

Currently, Gregory Olsen, Ph.D., of New Jersey, is finishing his orbital spaceflight preparations at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center for a 10-day visit to the International Space Station. His launch date is scheduled for October 1, 2005. The price of this mission is $20,000,000 (USD).

Space Adventures' suborbital program, currently in development, will consist of a four-day training period and a 90-minute spaceflight. As each vehicle reaches their maximum altitude, the rocket engines will shutdown and the passengers will experience up to five minutes of continuous weightlessness.

The company is the marketing and experiences operation partner for several of the leading space vehicle manufacturing companies and is the first company to accept deposits from suborbital spaceflight clients, currently totaling over $2,000,000 (USD). Space Adventures is anticipating suborbital spaceflights to commence in the 2007-08 timeframe and the current price for the program is $102,000 (USD).

JTB Corp.

JTB, established in April 1912, has 16,000 employees worldwide with 800 retail stores in Japan, 62 international offices and 162 subsidiary companies. This private company's gross sales are estimated at $12,000,000,000 (USD) annually. JTB's president is Takashi Sasaki and their main office is located in Tokyo. For more information, please visit http://www.jtb.co.jp/.

Space Adventures, Ltd.

Space Adventures, the only company to have successfully launched private space explorers to space, is headquartered in Arlington, Va. with offices in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Moscow and Tokyo. It offers a variety of programs such as Zero-Gravity and MiG flights, cosmonaut training, spaceflight qualification programs and reservations on future suborbital spacecrafts. The company's advisory board comprises Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, shuttle astronauts Sam Durrance, Robert (Hoot) Gibson, Byron Lichtenberg, Norm Thagard, Kathy Thornton, Pierre Thuot, Charles Walker and Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott. For more information, please visit http://www.spaceadventures.com/ or http://www.spaceadventures.jp/.

Space Adventures, Ltd.

CONTACT: Stacey Tearne, Director of Communications of Space Adventures,Ltd., +1-703-524-7172, ext. 544

Web site: http://www.spaceadventures.com/http://www.spaceadventures.jp/http://www.jtb.co.jp/

Source: PRNewswire

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