posted 08-21-2006 09:44 AM               

quote:

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Japanese entrepreneur Daisuke Enomoto has been training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, in preparation for a September 2006 orbital spaceflight. During a recent evaluation it was determined that Mr. Enomoto has a medical condition that will exclude him from participating as a crew member of Soyuz TMA-9.

No other information is available at this time.

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posted 08-21-2006 09:48 AM               

quote:

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Japanese Space Tourist Pulled from ISS Flight for Medical Reasons

A board of Russian medics has deemed a Japanese businessman – who has been preparing to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) as a tourist on board of a Russian crew craft – unfit to fly to space, a Russian official said Monday.

"He is being taken off that flight for medical reasons," a spokesman for Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) said referring to Daisuke – Dice-K – Enomoto, 34. "It is definite that he will not fly on Sept. 14," Roskosmos spokesman Igor Panarin told SPACE.com in a telephone interview.

...

Panarin told SPACE.com that the commission, which will meet either Tuesday or Wednesday, is likely to pick Enomoto's counterpart from the back-up Anousheh Ansari to fly to ISS with U.S. commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russian flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin. Ansari is a U.S. businesswoman and is a space tourist like Enomoto.

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posted 08-21-2006 10:35 AM               

Does this mean his backup Ansari will fly?

Tim

PS: oops! Should have read all of the announcement. Hope she will.