Talk about leveraging taxpayer money...

A private company is teaming up with the Russians to send people around the moon. This may involve docking with the 'international' space station - the largely US financed $40 billion dollar boondoggle that's unnecessarily extending the life of the space shuttle program. The Russians are already financing their small share of space station costs by sending up tourists - wealthy businessmen who are enjoying the ultimate in luxury travel and massively leveraging US taxpayer funding for this useful hunk of metal. Now even if the space station was doing genuinely valuable research - which it isn't - this would be grossly unfair. But for US taxpayers to be forced to drop valuable space research projects in order to finance joyrides for billionaires? Shameful.
Private Company Plans $100 Million Tour Around the Moon - New York Times

Another Space Adventures client, Greg Olsen, who made millions in the sale of his camera technology company, Sensors Unlimited, is preparing to visit the space station for several days in October. Of the Moon trip, he said, 'It's certainly intriguing, and it's something I'd like to do.'