Bang – Zoom! Wanna go to the Moon, Alice? Bill Gates Headed For Space

OK, maybe we’ve been watching too many Honeymooner reruns lately. But when a Russian cosmonaut hosting American billionaire Charles Simonyi aboard the International Space Station said in a television interview Wednesday that Simonyi told him that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is planning a space flight, Ralph Kramden came to mind.

During a live interview on Russian state television, cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin revealed that, "Charles said that Bill Gates is also preparing to visit space," according to reports of the interview emanating from Moscow.

Simonyi is a former Microsoft engineer. He paid $25 million to a U.S.-based company called Space Adventures to arrange his trip to the space station aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Gates, the world's richest man with an estimated net worth of $25 billion, could presumably afford the ticket. But unlike fellow billionaires such as Virgin's Richard Branson -- a hot air balloon enthusiast -- Gates to date has shown little inclination for high-risk endeavors.

Microsoft officials were not immediately available for comment.

Space Adventures cashes in on wealthy individuals' desire for adventure travel that is literally out of this world. For $102,000, the company will arrange for a sub-orbital space flight 62 miles above the earth. At the other end of the spectrum, Space Adventures is planning an expedition to the moon that will cost wannabe Neil Armstrongs $100 million each.

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