Spaceflight

Ticket to the moon for billionaire and wife

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November 4, 2022

Billionaire Dennis Tito and wife Akiko standing in front of Mars sign. — Space tourists Akiko and Dennis Tito pose in front of an Occupy Mars sign. SpaceX released this image with the announcement that the couple has purchased seats aboard the 1st crewed flight of Starship around the moon and back. Image via SpaceX.

Billionaire and wife buy ticket to the moon

Billionaire Dennis Tito, 82, and his wife Akiko Tito, will be among the dozen commercial passengers on board when SpaceX’s Starship takes its inaugural crewed trip around the moon. Dennis Tito was the first private citizen to visit the International Space Station in 2001. Akiko Tito is an engineer, pilot and investor, who has had interest in spaceflight since childhood. If this moon-bound Starship flight beats NASA’s first crewed Artemis mission to the moon, Akiko Tito will be the 1st-ever woman to leave Earth orbit.

SpaceX made the announcement via its blog:

This will be Dennis’ second mission to space after becoming the first commercial astronaut to visit the International Space Station in 2001, and Akiko will be among the first women to fly around the moon on a Starship. The Titos joined the mission to contribute to SpaceX’s long-term goal to advance human spaceflight and help make life multiplanetary.

Billionaires in space!

Dennis Tito made history in 2001 when he became the world’s first space tourist. Tito purchased a ride on a Russian Soyuz rocket and a week-long stay on the International Space Station from the space agency Roscosmos. The trip reportedly cost Tito $20 million.

Tito made his money in the financial sector through the early use of computer algorithms to trade stocks. At one time, Tito worked for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, creating algorithms to guide spacecraft to Mars and Venus.

Tito retired from finance in 2020.

Humans going back to the moon

SpaceX said it is sending Starship to the moon to prove it can provide support for NASA’s Artemis mission. Artemis will establish a permanent station orbiting the moon, with a goal of an eventual human presence on the lunar surface. The Artemis 1 mission – an uncrewed test flight of NASA’s SLS rocket – is scheduled for liftoff on November 14, 2022.

When the Titos rocket to the moon, it will be the second trip there for Starship. The first will be an uncrewed mission to prove the vehicle’s ability to leave Earth. There are no dates yet for the moon missions.

Bottom line: Billionaire Dennis Tito and wife Akiko Tito will be among the first space tourists to visit the moon.

Posted

November 4, 2022

Spaceflight

Dave Adalian

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About the Author:

Award-winning reporter and editor Dave Adalian's love affair with the cosmos began during a long-ago summer school trip to the storied and venerable Lick Observatory atop California's Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose in the foggy Diablos Mountain Range and far above Monterey Bay at the edge of the endless blue Pacific Ocean. That field trip goes on today, as Dave still pursues his nocturnal adventures, perched in the darkness at his telescope's eyepiece or chasing wandering stars through the fields of night with the unaided eye. A lifelong resident of California's Tulare County - an agricultural paradise where the Great San Joaquin Valley meets the Sierra Nevada in endless miles of grass-covered foothills - Dave grew up in a wilderness larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined, one choked with the greatest diversity of flora and fauna in the US, one which passes its nights beneath pitch black skies rising over the some of highest mountain peaks and greatest roadless areas on the North American continent. Dave studied English, American literature and mass communications at the College of the Sequoias and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has worked as a reporter and editor for a number of news publications on- and offline during a career spanning nearly 30 years so far. His fondest literary hope is to share his passion for astronomy and all things cosmic with anyone who wants to join in the adventure and explore the universe's past, present and future.

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Ticket to the moon for billionaire and wife