The world’s first space tourist wants to return – but this time he signed up to orbit the moon aboard Elon Musk’s starship. For Dennis Tito, 82, it’s a chance to relive the joy of his trip to the International Space Station now that he’s retired with time. He’s not interested in hopping on a 10-minute flight to the edge of space or repeating what he did 21 years ago. “Been there, done that.
Its weekly shot of the moon — its date to be determined and years in the future — will bring it within 125 miles (200 kilometers) of the moon’s far side. He will have company: his wife Akiko and 10 others who are willing to pay big bucks for the ride. Tito won’t say how much he pays; his flight to the Russian station cost $20 million. The couple realizes that there is still a lot of testing and development ahead of Starship, a shiny bullet-shaped monster that won’t even try to get into space yet.
“We have to stay healthy for as many years as it takes for SpaceX to complete this vehicle,” Tito told The Associated Press in an interview this week. “I might be sitting in a rocking chair not getting any good exercise if it wasn’t for this mission. Tito is actually the second billionaire to book a starship to fly around the moon. Japanese fashion mogul Yusaku Maezawa announced in 2018 that he was buying an entire flight so he could take about eight others, preferably artists, with him. Both men flew to the space station from Kazakhstan on Russian rockets, 20 years apart.
Tito started space tourism in 2001, becoming the first person to pay for a trip to space himself, antagonizing NASA in the process. The US space agency didn’t want a tourist hanging around while building the station. But the Russian space agency needed cash and, with the help of US-based Space Adventures, sent a number of wealthy clients to the station throughout the 21st century and just a year ago to Maezawa.
Decent customers are tasting the shorter flavors of space with Jeff Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic expects to welcome paying passengers next year. The starship has yet to launch on a super-heavy booster from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. With a height of 394 feet (120 meters) and a liftoff thrust of 17 million pounds (7.7 million kilograms), it is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. NASA has already contracted for a starship to land astronauts on the moon in 2025, the first moon landing since Apollo.
Tito said the couple’s contract with SpaceX, signed in August 2021 and announced Wednesday, includes an option to fly for up to five years. Tito would have been 87 at the time and wanted to retire in case his health deteriorated.
“But if I had stayed healthy, I would have waited 10 years,” he said. Tito’s wife, 57, said she needed no convincing. The Los Angeles natives are both pilots and understand the risks. They share Musk’s vision for the future of space and believe that a married couple flying together to the moon will inspire others to do the same. Tito, who sold his investment firm Wilshire Associates nearly two years ago, said he doesn’t feel guilty about wasting spaceflight versus spending money here on Earth. “We’re retired and now it’s time to reap the rewards of all the hard work,” he said.
Tito expects to also shatter long-held notions of age, just like John Glenn’s space shuttle flight in 1998. The first American to orbit the Earth still holds the record as the oldest person in orbit. “He was only 77 years old. He was just a young man,” Tito said. “I might end up being 10 years older than him.
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