Space, which was once "exclusive" to professional astronauts, has welcomed several curious tourists. These wealthy pioneers each paid at least $20 million for their "space tickets" and underwent long-term training and rigorous physical examinations. In today's world where technology is developing faster than we can imagine, perhaps in the near future, each of us will have the opportunity to take a look at Earth from "afar."
Dennis Tito, the founder and CEO of Wilshire Associates. To make his eight-day journey in space, he paid a fee of $20 million. Moreover, this Californian billionaire had been dreaming about space travel for 40 years, and it took him ten years of planning before his dream finally came true. On April 28, 2001, when Tito successfully landed on the International Space Station, he became the world's first space tourist.
Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu. Born on September 18, 1973, he is a South African entrepreneur. In 2002, he became the second self-funded space tourist in the world and the first African to enter space. Mark currently resides in London and holds dual nationality in South Africa and the UK.
At the end of 2008, Richard Garriott, the American computer game developer (the father of Ultima), traveled to the space station aboard a Russian manned spacecraft, becoming the sixth space tourist in the world.
Guy Laliberté, a Canadian billionaire. At the age of 50, Guy Laliberté is the founder and general manager of the Canadian Cirque du Soleil, with assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In September 2009, he will board the Russian Soyuz TMA-16 manned spacecraft to the International Space Station. His trip has a special social mission: to call on the world to focus on water resource issues as part of space research, making him the seventh space tourist.
Anousheh Ansari was born in Tehran, Iran, and moved to the United States at the age of 17 to study electrical engineering. In 2001, Fortune magazine selected 40 of the most successful people under 40 in the U.S. business community, and the then 35-year-old Anousheh Ansari was one of the two female elites chosen. At the age of 40, the Iranian-American telecommunications powerhouse Anousheh Ansari fulfilled her dream on September 18, 2006, embarking on her space journey. She became the fourth tourist to fly into space and the first female self-funded space traveler, becoming a role model for many Iranian women.
Charles Simonyi is the inventor of "What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG)," which is the core of the Windows system that Microsoft relies on to dominate the world. Charles Simonyi also established Microsoft's programmer management system. His title at Microsoft is Chief Architect, and he is a core member of Microsoft's highest-level think tank. He visited the International Space Station twice, in October 2006 and April 2007.
Just five years ago, space tourism was still a plotline in science fiction, but apparently, Earthlings now don't see it that way. Following Dennis Tito from the USA in 2001 and Mark Shuttleworth from South Africa in 2002 who both visited space as "tourists," the International Space Station in Russia welcomed its third "space tourist" on October 1, 2005. He is the 60-year-old American millionaire Gregory Olsen.