After months of preparation at Moscow's Star City training centre and a payment of some 25 million dollars (20 million euros), Ansari is due to spend 10 days on board the ISS, which is fast becoming the world's most exclusive resort.

After she and fellow travellers Michael Lopez-Alegria of the United States and Mikhail Tyurin of Russia have adapted to weightlessness, the Soyuz TMA-9 capsule will dock at the ISS on Wednesday.

As with previous such launches, a major security operation is planned by Russia -- which rents Baikonur from Kazakhstan -- in case of mishaps.

Fourteen planes and 18 helicopters are to be deployed near the flight path over Kazakhstan, Siberia and the Russian far east, while a naval ship will be mobilised in the Sea of Japan, a spokesman for Russia's air navigation service, Andrei Pryanishnikov, told the ITAR-TASS news agency.

Ansari, a 40-year-old engineer who made her millions in the US telecoms sector, is planning to take pictures, shoot film and write an Internet travel blog.

A US national who emigrated from Iran at the age of 16, she plans to do more than just document the view from the ISS and is hoping to carry out medical and biological experiments for the European Space Agency.

Russian Soyuz rockets became the main workhorses taking people to the ISS after the grounding of the US space shuttle fleet in 2003, an interruption that ended with the successful launch of the shuttle Atlantis last weekend.

Lopez-Alegria will replace his compatriot Jeffrey Williams, who has been on the station for six months. Tyurin will take over from fellow Russian Pavel Vinogradov.

A German astronaut, Thomas Reiter, who has been on the ISS since July, will remain on board.

Ansari arrived in Russia in February to train at the Star City base near Moscow. Then on September 2 she travelled to Baikonur in the Kazakh steppe to undergo two weeks of weightlessness training.

She was due to travel only next year but another space tourist, Japanese Internet tycoon Daisuke Enomoto, was forced to pull out of this month's launch after failing a medical test.

About 15 family members are expected to travel to Baikonur to see Ansari off from a special podium.

Before lift-off, Ansari and her colleagues will take part in a series of ceremonies reminiscent of the era of Yury Gagarin, who blasted off from Baikonur in 1961 to become the first man in space.

More than 40 years later, as the fourth space tourist, Ansari has to pay for the privilege -- "25 million dollars and up," said Eric Anderson of Space Adventures, which markets the trips.

In 2001, US entrepreneur Denis Tito reportedly paid 20 million dollars to become the first space tourist. His deep pockets were matched by South African Mark Shuttleworth in 2002 and Greg Olsen of the United States in 2005.

However, 25 million dollars is still moderate compared to what the US space agency NASA would have to charge for an orbital flight, Anderson said, speaking by telephone with AFP.

"The shuttle is too expensive," said Anderson. "And too dangerous."

Related Links
All about Space Tourism and more at Space-Travel.Com
Space Station News at Space-Travel.Com

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