Posted: Thu, Mar 7, 2002, 8:04 AM ET (1304 GMT)
Former NASA associate administrator Lori Garver is the latest name to surface in the race to be the third commercial space tourist, SPACE.com reported Wednesday. The article stated that Garver, currently a vice president with consulting firm DFI International, recently underwent a cosmonaut physical in Moscow. DFI officials, who are backing Garver's effort, said the flight would be paid for through foundation grants and corporate sponsorships in an effort to show that ordinary people can go into space. Garver was NASA associate administrator for policy and plans in the late 1990s; she is also currently president of the American Astronautical Society and previously served as executive director of the National Space Society. Garver is the third person to express an interest in flying as soon as this November's Soyuz taxi flight: last month both Leszek Czarnecki, a Polish entrepreneur, and *NSYNC band member Lance Bass, said they were pursuing opportunities to become space tourists. MirCorp is representing both Bass and Garver while Space Adventures, which arranged Dennis Tito's flight last year and Mark Shuttleworth's upcoming mission, is working with Czarnecki.

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•  SPACE.com article