Alan Boyle provides some more details about the Space Adventures/Ansari/RSA consortium's space tourist vehicle plans: New group to develop passenger spaceship - MSNBC - Feb.16.06. Some points of interest include:
* "'We will be the first to fly,' Space Adventures spokeswoman Stacey Tearne told MSNBC.com." Since Rocketplane plans to fly by mid-2007 and Virgin Galactic in 2008, that would imply that the Explorer will fly before the middle of 2007.
* The Explorer will be derived from the C-21, a mock-up of which was displayed by the Myasishchev Design Bureau back in 2002.
* The Explorer, however, will carry 5 instead of 2 passengers.
* The Ansari family 's venture investment company Prodea has a contract with Space Adventures to help fund the project.
* There is a separate contract with the Russian Space Agency, which will actually manage the development of the vehicle.
* The consortium will not operate the vehicles itself but will instead sell them to operators around the world. So far Dubai and Singapore have been rumored to be candidate sites.

Some additional info in this article: Partnership Reached To Push For Space Tourism - CBS 5 - San Francisco Bay Area - Feb.16.06

Space Adventures currently has about $3 million in escrow from nearly 200 potential passengers who have paid deposits to fly aboard a yet-to-be-built suborbital vehicle.

. See also this article:
* Consortium to make tour vehicles for space - CNET - Feb.16.06