Singer Sarah Brightman in training for space tourist role

On the survival course, Brightman has to spend 72 hours outside and construct a wigwam shelter using branches and a parachute, while knee-deep in snow

SPACE TOURIST IN TRAINING. A handout picture released by the press service of the Gagarin Research & Test Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) on January 20, 2015 shows British singer Sarah Brightman attending a press conference at the GCTC in Star City outside Moscow, Russia, January 19, 2015. File photo by GCTC Press Service/Handout/EPA

MOSCOW, Russia British singer Sarah Brightman has started a grueling 72-hour survival course in a snowy Russian forest to train for her upcoming role as a space tourist, Russia's cosmonaut training center said Friday, January 23.

The soprano known for her starring roles in West End musicals composed by ex-husband Andrew Lloyd Webber, is due to spend 10 days in space in September after paying $52 million to become the eighth space tourist in a flight arranged by US firm Space Adventures.

This month she began training at the legendary Gagarin cosmonaut training center in Star City outside Moscow.

In pictures of the survival course released by the training center, Brightman is shown in a snowy forest of fir trees, lashing tree trunks together to make a shelter while wearing waterproof jacket and trousers and a winter hat.

Temperatures fell to -16 degrees Celsius (3 Fahrenheit) in Moscow this week, followed by heavy snowfall Friday.

Brightman, 54, is in training with cosmonauts and astronauts from NASA, the Russian space agency and the Japanese space agency, as well as with a Japanese businessman who will take over as her replacement on the space flight if she has to drop out.

At a briefing Monday, January 19 at the cosmonaut training center, Brightman said: "I would like to say how proud and honored and excited I am to be part of the Russian space program and to be a cosmonaut in training."

"I hope.... I can do as good a job as possible and come up to expectations and I will try as hard as I can," she added.

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Singer Sarah Brightman in training for space tourist role

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