The New York Times this morning is reporting that Google co-founder Sergey Brin has made a $5 million investment in a company that will send two citizens to space in 2011. There will be a news conference today in New York to announce the investment. According to the Times this investment serves as an advance deposit on a future space flight. From the article in today’s New York Times:

…the passengers will have greater control over their flight and not simply be “piggybacking” on a government-sponsored flight. They could, for example, have more freedom to carry experiments of their own aboard the Soyuz, which has little cargo capacity, nearly all of it reserved for station business.

Link: Google Co-Founder Books a Flight on Russian Soyuz Space Shot