Even in the recent past, we would know all the cosmonauts by their names. Now, not taking advantage of Google, I would not know who is currently on the ISS. Flying into space has become a commonplace phenomenon, for the new generation there is nothing sublime or adventurous, it's just a scientific work, coupled with heavy physical exertion ...
The theme of space tourism was seriously discussed in 1986 at the International Congress on Astronautics. At the same time, there was a sad incident that made one think about the advisability of space tourism: January 28, 1986, crashed "Challenger", on board with the first space tourist Krista Mak Oliff.
In the early nineties, the first commercial astronauts - Japanese journalist Akiyama Toehiro and British citizen Helen Sharmen - went to space. And yet neither Toyohiro nor Sharman are considered cosmic tourists. Officially, the era of space tourism began with the "zero" years - with the onset of the XXI century.
The first to fly into space "just to see" was a 60-year-old American of Italian descent, multimillionaire Dennis Tito. He flew a week-long flight from April 28 to May 6, 2001. Tito flew in the Earth`s orbit 128 times; every turn cost him 150 thousand dollars.
April 25 - May 5, 2002, a millionaire from South Africa Mark Shuttleworth saw the Earth from the window, flew to the ISS for $ 20 million. Shuttleworth is the founder of the private company Canonical ltd., Managing the development of the operating system Ubuntu Linux, which is actively used on the ISS.
Another space tourist in 2006 could be a Japanese entrepreneur Daisyke Eenomoto, who paid $ 21 million, but he disqualified for medical reasons. The Japanese millionaire categorically does not agree with the decision of the organisers, and the dream to conquer the universe was transformed into a big legal conflict. As Enonomo himself admits, he no longer wants to go into space.
American multimillionaire Gregory Olsen received his share of unforgettable space impressions on the ISS on October 1-11, 2005.
As for Anoush Ansari, a US citizen of Iranian origin, who was on board the ISS on September 29, 2006, she was just lucky: she flew instead of Daisuke Enomoto. Anushe holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and electronics, is the founder of TelecomTechnologies, Inc. (TTI) and proprietor of ProdeaSystems, Inc.
The next space tourist was the American millionaire Richard Garriott, whose entrepreneurial activity is directly related to computer technology.
The flight was held from 12 to 24 October 2008.
Astronaut-tourist of Hungarian origin Charlie z Simonyi is the owner of the company with the eloquent title Intentional Software Corporation, and also one of the founders of Microsoft. He visited the ISS twice: in 2007 and 2009.
It's not entirely clear how the founder and leader of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte, one of the most influential businessmen on the planet, could enter the list of cosmic tourists, composed mainly of people involved in programming and high technologies in September 2009, according to Time magazine.
The Austrian parachutist extreme Felix Baumgartner approached the border of outer space to the maximum: he stepped down from a height of 38,710 meters, after a total of 9 minutes and 3 seconds in a fall and reached a speed of 1,173 kilometres per hour.
In October 2014, it became known that one of the crew members of the third mission for the preparation of the expedition to Mars within the framework of the NASA "HI-SEAS" project was Azeri Alleyn Mirkadyrov.
The research project "HI-SEAS" is an earth analogue of the conditions of man's flight to Mars.
TEXT- NATA OSMANLI; PHOTO- PRESS MATERIALS
