You Can Actually Tour Russia’s Space Program, and Learn What It’s Like to Be a Cosmonaut

Photo: Courtesy of MIR Corporation

The tour starts in Moscow, where you’ll be whisked from the airport to Star City. After resting up, you’ll tour the MIR Space Station simulator, and get answers to all your burning questions like “How do you sleep without gravity?” and, most importantly, “How do you poop?”

You’ll also get a tour of the Soyuz TMA integrated simulator, learning how cosmonauts train for the extreme conditions of a space launch. Then, you’ll get to walk around a full mock-up of the International Space Station, getting the feel of exactly how cramped and bizarre it is to live in space for months at a time.

Photo: Courtesy of MIR Corporation

If you still have cosmonaut fantasies after seeing what life in space is really like, you can opt into the tour’s cosmonaut training program. It includes experiencing 4Gs in the world’s largest centrifuge, putting on a space suit for an infinite Instagram picture, learning how to open space hatches, and riding on a parabolic zero-G simulation flight.

Photo: Courtesy of MIR Corporation

Photo: Courtesy of MIR Corporation

After that, it’s off to the Kazakh Steppe and the remote Baikonur launch facility. Try not to go too crazy on the nightlife, as you’ll be up way before dawn following the Soyuz Rocket to the launch pad for its imminent departure. Then you’ll hit the Cosmonaut Hotel for the crew’s official send-off and press event, including behind-the-scenes access to the cosmonauts.

Photo: Courtesy of MIR Corporation

After getting as-close-as-you-can-get-without-losing-your-eyebrows seats to the launch, it’s back to Moscow for tours of UNESCO sites like the cemetery where Anton Chekhov and Nikita Khrushchev are buried alongside a number of cosmonauts. You’ll also see the Energia Space Museum, as well as the World War II Memorial at Poklonnaya Gora, and Victory Park.

The whole thing will set you back $14,995, so it’s not exactly chump change but definitely cheaper than devoting your life to space travel. If you’ve got that kind of money, you can get more info here.