The fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa is preparing to rocket into space on December 8 on board of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The flight will make it possible for the members of the public to see how the life is on board the International Space Station. The billionaire will be accompanied with Yozo Hirano who will document the trip in video. The third person who will also rocket to space is Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.
Those traveling will spend 12 days at the Space Station and the billionaire has prepared a list of 100 things to do while there. He was also soliciting for ideas from members of the public.
“His intention is to try to share the experience of what it means to be in space with the general public,” organizers said in an interview
Maezawa has made his wealth in fashion retail, launching Japan’s largest online fashion mall, Zozotown. Forbes Magazine estimates his net worth to be $2 billion.
“I’m so curious, ‘What’s life like in space?’ So, I am planning to find out on my own and share with the world,” Maezawa said
He and his film producer will be the first self-paying tourists to visit the space station since 2009. The cost of the trip hasn’t been disclosed.
Space Adventures has previously sent seven other tourists to the space station, from 2001 to 2009.
Maezawa has also booked a flyby around the moon aboard Elon Musk’s Starship that is scheduled for 2023. The Japanese billionaire has been preparing for the trip at the Russian space facilities together with his crew-mates.
Among the 100 things Maezewa plans to do at the Space Station is playing badminton in orbit. He plans to play with crew-mate Misurkin. The Russian actor Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko are currently making the first movie in orbit.
The movie is titled “Challenge” in which a surgeon played by Peresild rushes to the space station to save a crew member who needs an urgent operation in orbit. Russian Cosmonaut will act as the ailing cosmonaut in the movie.
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