Many dream of a flight into space. For most of them it will remain a dream because it is simply too expensive. Now a Japanese wants to stay on the ISS for twelve days. He’s a billionaire.
Baikonur – For the first time in twelve years, space tourists take off again in a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station.
The Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano are due to take off from the Baikonur spaceport on the steppe of Kazakhstan in Central Asia on Wednesday. On board the Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft is the cosmonaut Alexander Missurkin.
Short flight time
After more than six hours of flight time, the three should reach the ISS. According to the Russian space agency Roskosmos, the space tourists will stay there for twelve days.
Private individuals on board the station around 400 kilometers above the ground have been rare in recent years. With the two Japanese, the number of tourists transported by Roskosmos rises to nine. One reason for the low number is that the Russian missiles took US astronauts to the ISS for many years. In addition, the costs of such trips are still immense.
“Tourism” for the super-rich
“We are talking about tens of millions of US dollars,” said the head of the US company Space Adventures, which specializes in space tourism, Tom Shelley, of the German press agency in Moscow. According to him, between 44 million and 53 million euros are due per person and flight. “It sounds very expensive, but in the end it is a priceless opportunity.” Space tourism will therefore remain something for the very rich for the foreseeable future.
It is not known how expensive the flight to the ISS will be for the two Japanese. According to Forbes magazine, 46-year-old Maezawa is one of the 30 richest people in Japan with private assets of around 1.7 billion euros. He started shipping CDs in 1998. The entrepreneur later made his living selling clothes on the Internet through the Zozotown website, which was founded in 2004.
Good morning. It’s launch time in 9 hours. I’m going to wash my body thoroughly, disinfect my skin, wear my space underwear and flightsuit, transport closer to the launch site, wear my spacesuit, head to the launchpad, and board my Soyuz. pic.twitter.com/N06L4iPYzt
— Yusaku Maezawa (MZ) (@yousuckMZ) December 7, 2021
Maezawa recently made a name for himself as a space enthusiast. He documented his three-month training to prepare for the time in weightlessness in the short message service Twitter. “It’s the toughest training ever.” He posted a picture of himself on a constantly rotating chair. “The swivel chair – almost feels like torture.”
“I have a list of a hundred things I want to do on the ward, like play badminton,” he said recently. 755,000 users are already following him on YouTube. In the social networks he wants to report on his impressions in weightlessness.
For the eccentric fashion entrepreneur and art collector, staying in the space station is just a first step towards much more ambitious plans. He probably wants to fly around the moon on a private SpaceX flight in 2023 and had sought companions for it in a worldwide appeal.
The hustle and bustle of space tourism should come in handy for Russia. Roskosmos wants to bring more private individuals into space in the future – and above all earn money with them. Since the US space agency Nasa has been flying its astronauts to the ISS in private spaceships, spaces have become free in the Russian Soyuz capsules. A Russian film team that flew to the ISS for a short shoot attracted attention in the fall.
Shatner was already in space
The USA also made spectacular flights: Almost two months ago, “Star Trek” icon William Shatner – the former “Captain Kirk” actor – flew into space. The 90-year-old Canadian actor went on a 10-minute excursion on board a “New Shepard” space capsule from the Blue Origin company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
He thinks that tourist flights into space will be easier in the next few years, Maezawa said the day before his departure from the Russian state agency Ria Novositi. “Our job is to show how difficulties can be overcome.”
The cosmonauts of the ISS are likely to look forward to the spaceship for another reason: According to Roskosmos, there are New Year’s gifts on board. Among them are letters from families and friends and “homemade delicacies”. The luggage, which weighs 162 kilograms, also includes materials for research and experiments, hygiene articles, food and 13 kilograms of fresh fruit. dpa
