The first space tourist in history said on Wednesday that he intended to participate with his wife in a future mission around the Moon organized by the American company SpaceX.
Dennis Tito, an American entrepreneur who was the first earthling to pay for space travel in 2001, told reporters that what drove him to innovate the experience was his passion for “space and the opportunities it offers humanity“.
The one-week mission, which Dennis Tito and Akiko, his wife, were to take part in, plans to fly 200 km from the surface of the Moon before returning to Earth.
It will take place when Elon Musk has completed the prototype of his Starship spacecraft and completed an already planned first commercial flight with a Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa.
Of the 12 available seats, the Tito couple reserved two, unlike Yusaku Maezawa, who reserved the entire flight organized by SpaceX.
Dennis Tito, 82, did not specify the amount paid to take the trip with Akiko, but in 2001 he had paid $20 million to fly aboard a Russian rocket to the International Space Station (ISS), ushering in the era of space tourism. .
SpaceX has not yet announced when it will begin commercial space missions aboard Starship — a rocket that Elon Musk says he wants to one day bring humans to Mars.
NASA, for its part, has chosen to bet on Starship being the lander used as part of its Artemis program to return to the Moon.