Some potential space tourists have passed a medical test in Russia's medical-biology problems Institute (MBPI) in Moscow, MBPI director Anatoly Grigoriev told journalists.

Grigoriev noted that Californian movie director James Cameron was among them.According to a contract between Cameron and the Institute, the MBPI has no right to reveal any details of these medical tests. Grigoriev also refused to name the others participants of their space tourism programme. He said only that there were foreign candidates as well as Russian. It was reported earlier that the Energiya (Energy) Rocket Space Corporation, the firm that built the Russian modules used on the international space station (ISS), was holding negotiations with ten possible candidates for a commercial tourism space trip on board of Soyuz TM spacecraft. History's first paid space tourist, California millionaire Dennis Tito, 60, paid Russia $20 million to fly him to the international space station. Tito flew to space along with Russian cosmonauts Yuri Baturin and Talgat Musabayev in April. Grigoriev said the space tourism had all the preconditions to extend quickly. Tito's case showed that ordinary people could become space tourists, the MBPI director emphasized. NASA had opposed Tito's trip on safety grounds. But Rosaviakosmos stated that NASA did not understand that Tito was properly trained and there were no so much risk to let him fly to the station.