The first space tourist in history said on Wednesday that he intended to participate with his wife in a future mission around the Moon organized by the American company SpaceX.
Dennis Tito, an American businessman who was the first Earthman to pay for space travel in 2001, told reporters that what prompted him to renew the experience was his passion for “space and the possibilities it offers humanity.”
The potential future mission will take place when Elon Musk has completed the prototype of his Starship spacecraft and made an already planned first commercial flight with a Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa.
$20 million in 2001
Of the 12 seats available, the Tito couple booked two, unlike Yusaku Maezawa, who booked the entire SpaceX-arranged flight.
Dennis Tito, 82, did not specify the amount paid to make the trip with Akiko but, in 2001, he had paid 20 million dollars to fly aboard a Russian rocket to the International Space Station (ISS), giving way to the era of space tourism. .
SpaceX has yet to announce when it will begin commercial space missions aboard Starship, a rocket Elon Musk said he wants to use to one day allow humans to settle on Mars. NASA, for its part, has chosen to bet on Starship to become the lander used as part of its Artemis program to return to the Moon.
Source: BFM TV
