Backgrounder: Billionaires kick off space tourism

A Russia Soyuz spaceship carrying two cosmonauts and one space tourist set off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Saturday evening. There have been so far five paying space tourists in the world, including the first woman tourist.

In May 2001, California businessman Dennis Tito became the world's first space tourist. He paid 20 million U.S. dollars, or 1, 800 dollars per minute, for the 8-day trip to the international space station (ISS) onboard a Soyuz vessel.

The world's second space tourist Mark Shuttleworth from South Africa soared into orbit in April 2002 onboard a Soyuz TM-34 rocketship. The 28-year-old Internet tycoon carried out numbers of experiments on the station during the 10-day mission.

U.S. millionaire Gregory Olsen started his flight to the ISS as the third space tourist, or a private science researcher as he regarded himself as, on Oct. 1, 2005, onboard a Russian-built Soyuz TMA-7 capsule.

The 60-year-old chief of a New Jersey-based infrared-camera company reportedly paid 20 million U.S. dollars for the 12-day flight.

Iranian-born American Anousheh Ansari became the fourth but the first female space tourist in Sept. 2006.

Ansari, 40, who runs a telecommunications company in Texas, conducted a series of blood and muscular experiments for the European Space Agency during her eight-day stay on the station.

Charles Simonyi, the 58-year-old Hungary-born American onboard the Soyuz TMA-10 spaceship that was launched Saturday, was the fifth space tourist. He will stay in the orbit for 12 days, which reportedly cost him 25 million U.S. dollars.

So far, many companies has been developing and promoting in- orbit or sub-orbit commercial space travel. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has issued rules to regulate such projects though they are still expensive for the common people.

Source: Xinhua