The three luxury tourists who will make a trip to the International Space Station (ISS) in a SpaceX capsule have been revealed. The names were revealed by Axiom Space, the tour company that organizes the trip with the equipment of the company founded by Elon Musk.
The passengers are businessman Larry Connor, investor Mark Pathy and ex-military man Eytan Stibbe – all paying a total of $ 55 million each for the ticket, on a two-day trip. In all, they will be able to spend up to eight days in the station’s North American facilities, performing basic tasks to help and sleeping in the same establishments as astronauts from around the world.
The Ax-1 mission is expected to be the pioneer in an industry that promises to grow in the coming years: space tourism using passenger transport capsules like the Crew Dragon, which carried out a successful mission to NASA until the ISS in November 2020 , a milestone in the history of private space transport.
After some postponements, the takeoff is expected to take place in early 2022 – with another company, Space Adventures, planning to make a similar trip in Earth orbit later this year.
Meet the crew
Larry Connor is an entrepreneur and has an investment firm valued at $ 3 billion. Its main business sector is in Ohio, in the United States, and involves real estate. He also leads several philanthropy projects.
Mark Pathy is Canadian and maintains an investment company called Mavrik. Eytan Stibbe, on the other hand, is an Israeli and, before becoming a businessman who owns a venture capital company, served as a pilot in the army.
The mission commander and responsible for training tourists will be Michael López-Alegría, a NASA astronaut who has been to space four times and is now vice president of Axiom.
In addition to travel, Axiom intends to establish a private space station from 2024 onwards, first as part of the ISS and then becoming its own research and trade hub.
