Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa travels to space

New York (CNN Business) – Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire, soared into outer space aboard a Russian-made Soyuz capsule and rocket on Wednesday morning, kicking off the first self-funded tourist mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in a decade.

The capsule lifted off from the Russian cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2:38 a.m. ET on Wednesday, and is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station around 8:41 a.m. ET.

Joining Maezawa on his 12-day voyage aboard the ISS are veteran Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, who will be in command of the mission, and Maezawa’s production assistant and cameraman, Yozo Hirano, who will capture images of the US mogul. fashion while floating around the space station.

“I’m so curious about ‘what is life in space like?’ So I’m planning to find out on my own and share it with the world on my YouTube channel,” Maezawa said in a recent statement.

spacial tourism

This mission exemplifies the drastic change that the global space industry has undergone in the last decade. Such space tourism missions have happened before, namely eight similar missions for wealthy thrill seekers launched to the ISS in the 2000s, all organized aboard Soyuz capsules by the American company Space Adventures. But such missions came on hiatus after NASA’s Space Shuttle program was withdrawn in 2011, leaving Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft as the only option to transport even professional astronauts to the ISS.

But now, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has stepped in to provide additional transportation to the space station for American astronauts, freeing up space for tourists. And the space tourism industry in general is booming. Recent trips to space for wealthy adventurers have included a charity fundraising trip for four tourists aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule in September, and several trips to space, including billionaire space company founders Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, on short trips in suborbital rockets that skimmed the edge of space.

The ISS has already welcomed a couple of spaceflight rookies this year. A Russian actress and director spent 12 days on the space station in October to shoot part of a movie in a historic first.

Who is Yusaku Maezawa

You may also be familiar with the name Maezawa, as he first made international headlines in 2018 by announcing separate plans to fly an upcoming SpaceX spacecraft, called the Starship, to the moon in 2023, along with eight artists of his choosing. same. Those plans are still in the works, but he apparently opted to get his feet wet, metaphorically, in the space travel environment by booking this mission also on the ISS, which orbits just a couple hundred kilometers above Earth.

It’s unclear how much Maezawa, who made his fortune off Japanese e-commerce site Zozotown, paid for the mission. Space Adventures, which planned the Maezawa flight as well as the ISS tourist flights of the 2000s, declined to share a figure. Previous Space Adventures flights to the space station have cost travelers between $ 20 million and $ 40 million, said Tom Shelley, president of the company, in an interview with CNN Business.

But he added that current market prices are more in the $ 50 million to $ 60 million range.

“It’s certainly in the tens of millions of dollars,” Shelley said.

Changes

Shelley also noted that after a prolonged hiatus, Space Adventures has noticed a drastic change in public awareness about space flight opportunities.

“When we were doing this 10, 15 years ago … a lot of people just didn’t know that it was possible to fly into space as a private citizen,” he said. “But now, in 2021, there really is a greater awareness within the market, so the discussion is different.”

Maezawa and Hirano, both spaceflight novices, had to enter a three-month training regimen for their flight. And Maezawa shared snippets of her not always pleasant experiences on social media.

【11 days until Launch?】

Unusual training in Russia ③

The spinning chair – almost feels like torture. Some cosmonauts say it’s necessary, some say it’s not. Either way, it’s the hardest training ever done.

※ Warning: eyes will be spinning just by watching#MZJourneytoSpace pic.twitter.com/ARzh7yaXXk

– Yusaku Maezawa (MZ) (@yousuckMZ) November 27, 2021

But the training was less intense than some of the early missions, Shelley said.

“When [el millonario] Dennis Tito flew in 2001, his training was quite long. I think it was six months or more, because no one had done it before, “he said.” Over the years, we have been able to remove some of the fat from the training requirements. “

Maezawa, Hirano and Misurkin will return from the ISS on December 19, flying in the same Soyuz capsule as the first leg of their journey. If all goes according to plan, they will parachute to a landing in a remote area of ​​Kazakhstan, as is standard procedure for a Soyuz flight.