Space Tourist / To the ISS
Orbital Commercial Space Business
Space Adventures has launched seven clients on eight successful missions to the International Space Station (ISS) since 2001. In April 2001, the company sent American businessman Dennis Tito for a reported $20 million payment, making him the first space tourist. South African businessman Mark Shuttleworth did the same in April 2002, becoming the first African in space. Gregory Olsen became the third private citizen to travel to the ISS in October 2005, followed by the first female space tourist, Anousheh Ansari, who completed her 10-day orbital mission in September 2006. Charles Simonyi, an ex-executive at Microsoft, became the fifth space tourist who visited the ISS in April 2007, then again in March 2009. He is the world’s first private space explorer who launched to space twice. In 2008, game developer Richard Garriott, the first second-generation U.S. astronaut, became the sixth client to travel to the ISS. In October 2009, Guy Laliberté became the first Canadian space tourist to have launched to space.
Spacewalk
In 2006, the company announced that it would begin offering a spacewalk option to its clients traveling to the ISS. The spacewalk would allow participants to spend up to 1.5 hours outside of the space station and costs about $15 million. It would lengthen the orbital mission approximately six to eight days. The spacewalk would be completed in the Russian-designed Orlan space suit. The training for the spacewalk would require an extra month of training on top of the six months already required.