SPACE – The whimsical 46-year-old Japanese billionaire accompanied by his assistant and a Russian cosmonaut, landed on Monday in the steppe of Kazakhstan.
HR with AFP –
Their incredible journey into space has come to an end. Yusaku Maezawa, a 46-year-old Japanese billionaire, his assistant Yozo Hirano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Missurkin, have landed on Earth after spending 12 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS). “The flight of the Soyuz MS-20 tourist spacecraft is over”Roscosmos said in a statement posted on its website.
The landing was made around 3:13 GMT on Monday, in the steppe of Kazakhstan about 150 kilometers southeast of the city of Zhezkazgan, in central Kazakhstan. Footage showed the trio smiling after being helped out of the Soyuz descent module and into evacuation vehicles, in the cold and haze.
“The crew is feeling good”, said a NASA TV commentator, translating comments from Russian Mission Control. According to the press service of the Central Military District, they were to be greeted on arrival with a dish “surprise” of noodles from Japan.
Videos on daily life in orbit
The trip marks Russia’s return to space tourism after a decade-long hiatus. This sector in which Russia has lost ground to private American companies, notably Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is experiencing renewed interest and constitutes a potential financial windfall.
The three men spent 12 days aboard the ISS, where Yusaku Maezawa, an online fashion heavyweight, had set himself a list of 100 tasks to accomplish in space. His assistant also made videos on daily life in orbit for the billionaire’s YouTube account.
We can see the man explaining in detail to his million followers how to brush his teeth or even go to the toilet in zero gravity. “Peeing is very easy”, he said in one of the videos, showing the tool astronauts use to suck urine. In another, he makes himself a tea without sugar and praises the tasty cookies of the ISS.
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Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant are the first Japanese tourists to space since 1990, when a journalist stayed aboard the Soviet Mir station. The very lucrative private space flight sector is currently being boosted by the recent entry into the race of the companies of American billionaires Elon Musk (SpaceX) and Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin), as well as that of the British Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic) .
In September, SpaceX hosted a three-day orbit flight with an all-amateur crew. She also plans to take several tourists around the moon in 2023, including Yusaku Maezawa, who is funding this operation.
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