【導讀】英國著名女歌手莎拉?布萊曼將以私人游客身份訪問國際空間站。屆時，她將成為首個在太空放歌的專業音樂人。布萊曼表示“太空之旅是我的夢，這個夢終于要成真了。這是目前為止我生命中最讓我興奮的事情。”布萊曼的具體行程將有俄羅斯聯邦航天局和國際空間站共同決定。國際空間站項目組負責人表示，布萊曼已經通過了相關的心理和身體檢查。結束2013年的巡演后，布萊曼將在莫斯科的宇航員培訓中心接受6個月的準備訓練，她將是造訪國際空間站的第七位私人游客。負責私人游客訪問太空的公司未透露布萊曼為此行支付的費用，不過上一位太空私人游客所支付的費用為3500萬美元。
British singer Sarah Brightman is to travel as a space tourist to the International Space Station.
British singer Sarah Brightman will travel as a space tourist to the International Space Station.
The classical recording artist, once married to Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, will be part of a three-person crew flying to the space station.
After completing a tour in 2013, Ms Brightman will embark on six months of preparation at the Star City cosmonaut training centre in Moscow.
She will be the seventh space tourist to visit the station.
Once there, she says she intends to become the first professional musician to sing from space.
"This voyage is a product of a dream, my dream. Finally it can be a reality. I am more excited about this than anything I have done in my life to date," she said at a news conference in Moscow.
She added that the schedule for her flight would "be determined very shortly by (Russian federal space agency) Roscosmos and the ISS partners."
Alexey Krasnov, head of the ISS program at Roscosmos, said Ms Brightman had passed the required mental and physical examinations to fly into space.
Space Adventures, the Vienna-based company that organizes flights for private spacefarers, did not disclose how much Ms Brightman had paid for her seat on the Soyuz.
But the last space tourist, Cirque du Soleil chief executive Guy Laliberte, paid around $35m for the privilege.
Sarah Brightman began her career with the dance troupe Hot Gossip, which had a chart hit in 1978 with I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper.
She subsequently starred on the West End stage in Cats and Phantom of the Opera, both penned by Andrew Lloyd Webber, whom she married in 1984.
The pair divorced in 1990 and Brightman embarked on a solo singing career. She helped popularize the classical crossover genre, scoring a worldwide hit with her duet with Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, Time To Say Goodbye. (Read by China Daily website editor Nelly Min)
