Russian commentator, Andrei Kislyakov, thinks that Russia should have done more with space tourism when it was the only game in town. Now with the ISS crew going to six and Virgin Galactic booking thousands of people for (relatively) cheap sub-orbital flights, space tourism is moving towards the western world.
"Much to our regret, mass space tourism is leaving Russia. We could have kept it if Roskosmos had supported a project of the Myasishchev design bureau to develop a tourist spaceship on the basis of the high-altitude M-55 aircraft. But it remained on paper."
The Russian space agency has sealed a deal with a private investor to build a Soyuz spacecraft specially for tourist hire and operational in 2011
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