Tokyo \u2013 December 7 (Online): Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said he could barely contain his excitement a day ahead of blasting off to the International Space Station in a prelude to a more ambitious trip around the moon with Elon Musk’s SpaceX planned in 2023.<\/p>\n
The 46-year-old fashion magnate and art collector has been training at a space centre outside Moscow in recent months before becoming the first space tourist to travel to the ISS in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
Maezawa will travel aboard a Soyuz spacecraft, which will launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, accompanied by his assistant Yozo Hirano, who will document the journey, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.<\/p>\n
Speaking from Baikonur ahead of his 12-day space journey, Maezawa said flying into space had been a childhood dream.<\/p>\n
“I’m excited. I feel like an elementary school student about to go on a outing,” Maezawa said at a news conference. “I didn’t think I would be able to go to space. I used to like the starry sky and heavenly bodies. I <\/p>\n
feel fortunate to have this opportunity and to finally fulfil my dream.”
\nThe billionaire has been chronicling his preparations, including demonstrating his space suit and riding a centrifuge, in social media posts, with plans to post more from space.<\/p>\n
During his 100 days in training, Maezawa said he had enjoyed parabolic flight, where weightlessness is induced for short periods on an adapted plane, but found training in a spinning chair tough.<\/p>\n
The entrepreneur, who was wearing a blue flight suit with a badge reading “world peace”, said he had struggled to learn Russian to communicate with his trainers and looked forward to eating sushi when he returns to Earth.<\/p>\n
Maezawa will become the first private passenger on the SpaceX moon trip, as commercial firms including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin usher in a new age of space travel for wealthy clients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tokyo \u2013 December 7 (Online): Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said he could barely contain his excitement a day ahead of blasting off to the International Space Station in a prelude to a more ambitious trip around the moon with Elon Musk’s SpaceX planned in 2023. […]<\/p>\n
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