The world's richest man, Bill Gates, is considering a flight into space, a cosmonaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) said Wednesday, citing Gates' colleague and space tourist Charles Simonyi.(File Photo)

BEIJING, April 12 (Xinhuanet) -- The world's richest man, Bill Gates, is considering a flight into space, a cosmonaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) said Wednesday, citing Gates' colleague and space tourist Charles Simonyi.

    "Charles said that Bill Gates is also preparing to visit space," cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin told journalists during a video link-up from the space station, broadcast on state television Rossiya, according to media report Thursday.

    Simonyi, 58, is paying an estimated 20 million to 25 million U.S. dollars for a 13-day trek to the ISS under an agreement between Russia's Federal Space Agency and the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures. He is documenting the spaceflight flight via his personal Web site.

    However, Space Adventures, the US-based company that organises the trips, said it had heard nothing from the Microsoft chairman about a possible flight.

    "We will be announcing an identity of our next orbital client," Space Adventures spokesperson Stacey Tearne Tearne said, adding the announcement could come within the next eight weeks.

    The firm has secured seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft for private spaceflights in 2008 and 2009, Tearne said.

    Meanwhile, a spokesman for Russian space agency Roskosmos, Igor Panarin, said Gates "visited us several months ago at the cosmonaut training centre at Star City" near Moscow.

    "However, for now there are no negotiations on taking part in a tourist flight. We have not had any official request from Mr Gates," he said.

    (Agencies)