Dennis Tito, the first space tourist in history, said Wednesday, October 12, that he plans to participate with his wife in a future mission around the moon organized by the U.S. company SpaceX.
Dennis Tito, an American entrepreneur who was the first Earth man to pay for a trip to space in 2001, explained to reporters that what led him to renew the experience was his passion for “space and the possibilities it offers to humanity.
The one-week mission in which Dennis Tito and Akiko, his wife, should participate foresees a flight at 200 km from the surface of the Moon before a return to Earth.
It will take place when Elon Musk will have completed the prototype of his Starship and realized the first commercial flight already planned with a Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa.
Of the 12 seats available, the Tito couple reserved two, unlike Yusaku Maezawa who booked the entire flight organized by SpaceX.
Dennis Tito, 82 years old, did not specify the amount paid to make the trip with Akiko but, in 2001, he spent 20 million USD to fly on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station (ISS), inaugurating the era of space tourism.
SpaceX has not yet announced when it will begin commercial space missions aboard Starship – a rocket that Elon Musk has said he wants to use to one day allow humans to settle on Mars.
NASA, meanwhile, has chosen Starship as the lunar lander for its Artemis moon return program.
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