Original Space Tourist Secures 2 Seats on SpaceX Moon Mission
More than 20 years after becoming the first private citizen in space, Dennis Tito will fly to the Moon with SpaceX.
The American engineer and entrepreneur was 60 years old in 2001 when he paid a reported $20 million(Opens in a new window) to board the Russian rocket Soyuz TM-32 for a week-long trip to the International Space Station.
Two decades (and one trip to SpaceX's California headquarters) later, Dennis and wife Akiko have secured their places(Opens in a new window) aboard Starship's second commercial spaceflight around the Moon. The couple joined the mission, SpaceX said, "to contribute to [the firm's] long-term goal to advance human spaceflight and help make life multiplanetary."
Over the course of a week, the fully reusable, super-heavy-lift Starship will fly within 125 miles of the Moon's surface and complete a full journey around the celestial body before returning to Earth.
Tito will be at least 83 years old by the time he embarks on the mission—expected to launch only after the Polaris Dawn Starship test(Opens in a new window) (no earlier than Q4 of 2022) and Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa's dearMoon lunar tourism project (no earlier than 2023).
At age 90, Star Trek actor William Shatner last year became the oldest person to go to space, breaking the record set only three months earlier by 82-year-old Wally Funk, who traveled on the New Shepard's first crewed spacecraft in July 2021.
There is no word on how much the Titos paid for their seats—two of a dozen available spots, according to Ars Technica(Opens in a new window). Akiko Tito is the first woman confirmed to fly around the Moon on Starship.
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