Fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa and producer Yozo Hirano, who
plans to film his mission, blasted off for the International Space Station in a
Russian Soyuz spacecraft along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.
The trio lifted off as scheduled at 12:38 p.m. local time
aboard Soyuz MS-20 from the Russia-leased Baikonur launch facility in
Kazakhstan and successfully docked at the orbiting outpost almost six hours
later.
Maezawa and Hirano are scheduled to spend 12 days in space.
The two are the first self-paying tourists to visit the space station since
2009. The price of the trip hasn’t been disclosed.
“I would like to look at the Earth from space. I would like
to experience the opportunity to feel weightlessness,” Maezawa said during a
pre-flight news conference on Tuesday. “And I also have a personal expectation:
I’m curious how the space will change me, how I will change after this space
flight.”
A company that organized the flight said Maezawa compiled a
list of 100 things to do in space after asking the public for ideas. The list
includes “simple things about daily life to maybe some other fun activities, to
more serious questions as well,” Space Adventures President Tom Shelley said.
“His intention is to try to share the experience of what it
means to be in space with the general public,” Shelley told The Associated
Press earlier this year.
Maezawa made his fortune in retail fashion, launching
Japan’s largest online fashion mall, Zozotown. Forbes magazine estimated his
net worth at $2 billion.
The tycoon has also booked a flyby around the moon aboard
Elon Musk’s Starship that is tentatively scheduled in the next few years. He’ll
be joined on that trip by eight contest winners.
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