WASHINGTON -- Selling unused space shuttle seats to tourists could help the cash-strapped space program make ends meet, a former astronaut told Congress on Tuesday.

Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, the second man on the moon, said that space tourism "can be the solution to the problem of high space costs that plague government and private space efforts alike."

Aldrin, who was on the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, said that NASA is "hostile" to space tourism and that Congress should intervene with the agency to encourage spaceflight for ordinary citizens.

He said that trips to space could be sold to the highest bidder or even offered to the public by lottery.

Sitting with Dennis Tito, a California businessman who paid $20 million to fly on a Russian spacecraft to the International Space Station, Aldrin said, "We Americans have spare seats for rich tourists, too."

Aldrin said that the space shuttle often flies with only five or six people when it could hold seven or eight. Those extra seats, he said, could be sold to paying travelers.

"I know of two individuals, a well-known Hollywood producer and a well-known television correspondent, who are ready to go right now," Aldrin said. He did not name either person.

Aldrin said in written testimony that NASA could sell some shuttle seats to the highest bidder and offer others by lottery or sweepstakes, "so that every American could have a small chance of flying to space."

Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., a member of the subcommittee, said that if NASA flew the space shuttle seven times a year and sold two seats per flight for $20 million each, it could raise $1.4 billion over five years. He said that equals about 35 percent of a projected space station cost overrun.

"Why shouldn't Congress look at this?" Weldon asked W. Michael Hawes, the only NASA witness at the hearing.

Hawes said that space shuttle flights, with cargo and crew, now carry the maximum weight possible and that if space tourists were added, "We'd have to throw something out."

The NASA official said that the agency was looking at all its policies related to space tourism, but that the space station is still a construction site that is not yet ready for tourists.

Hawes said, however, that NASA and its partners want the space station to be "open to the full spectrum of people on Earth" and that issues of space tourism are not being ignored.

"There are important questions, and they are being considered seriously," Hawes told the committee.

In his testimony, Tito said that NASA should encourage Russia to sell empty seats on the Soyuz, a spacecraft used to ferry supplies to the space station. Tito rode a Soyuz to and from space.

Tito said that his eight days in orbit "will remain the highlight of my life" and he hopes that others may share the experience.

The Russians arranged the trip without consulting the other nations involved in the International Space Station.

NASA and other ISS partners tried to block Tito's flight, claiming safety concerns, but eventually he was launched with two cosmonauts.

Tito, in written testimony, declined to confirm that he spent $20 million for his space trip, but noted that the cost to him was enough to pay the annual salaries of about 10,000 Russian spaceworkers who earn about $100 a month.