Dennis Tito: first paying space tourist aboard the ISS
Dennis Tito: primer turista espacial de pago en la ISS
- Date
- 28 de abril - 6 de mayo de 2001 · confidence high
- Place
- Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
- Credited to
- Dennis Tito, Space Adventures and Roscosmos
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
US businessman Dennis Tito paid about 20 million dollars for an eight-day stay on the ISS aboard a Soyuz. He opened orbital space tourism against NASA's initial opposition.
'First tourist' is debated: Japanese journalist Toyohiro Akiyama flew to Mir in 1990, paid for by his employer (TBS), and Charles Simonyi flew in 2007; Tito was the first to pay for himself.
What it led to
- eight further customers on the ISS until 2009 via Space Adventures
- commercial suborbital and orbital tourism
- debate on private access to the ISS