“It will in some ways be more like a foreman than a cruise director,” he said. López-Alegría said.
In an interview, Mr. Connor acknowledges that many people doubt the value of rich people paying millions for such trips. “I realize people have questions,” he said. “People criticize, ‘Hey, with all the trouble going on, why are these guys spending all this money going into space?’ ‘
But he replied that Kids & Community Partners, the charity arm of his business, planned to spend $ 400 million over the next ten years on programs to help children and fund medical research. In total, he said he would eventually donate half of his net worth to charities. About 30 percent of its wealth goes to what the company calls ‘key partners’.
“Only 20 percent are going to stay in my family,” he said. Connor said. ‘So I was just hoping people would at least have the context of what I believe, if people were going to criticize me or get slandered.
Space Adventures announced last year that it also had an agreement with SpaceX to launch a Crew Dragon to take tourists on an orbit around the Earth, but it did not provide further details on when the mission could take off. It also resumed the sale of tourist trips to Russian Soyuz rockets to the space station. Two customers will embark on a flight later this year.
Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese fashion entrepreneur, has also signed up for a SpaceX tourist trip, but it will be a trip across the moon in a few years from now on a giant rocket called Starship that is still under development is.
Those who can not afford a revolution will soon have cheaper options, in the price range of hundreds of thousands of dollars, for short walks and hikes to the edge of space and back, where they can experience a few minutes of weightlessness.