Yusaku Maezawa:
Billionaire Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa reached the International Space Station (ISS) for a 12-day trip, during which time he will complete 100 tasks in space, including playing a game of badminton.
- Maezawa and another space tourist Yozo Hirano–who will document the billionaire’s space flight–made the trip led by Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.
- The three reached the ISS aboard a Soyuz MS-20 that took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
- Companies including Virgin Atlantic, SpaceX, XCOR Aerospace, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Armadillo Aerospace are working on providing space tourism services to people.
- But Space Adventures is the only private company to send paying customers to orbital space so far, a report by the Congressional Research Service notes.
- In 2004, test pilot Mike Melville became the first private astronaut to fly beyond the Karman Line (recognised as the edge of space).
