A Japanese billionaire and businessman Yusaku Maezawa, is currently on his journey for the International Space Station (ISS) after taking off out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard Russia’s Soyuz MS-20, a crew vessel on the 8th of December in the morning at 02:38 ET (07:38 GMT).
“A dream come true,” the entrepreneur tweeted before taking off on his three-seat Soyuz spacecraft, which will take him to space. He’s with Russian pilot and cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin and film producer Yozo Hirano to record the journey to Maezawa’s YouTube channel.
After the Soyuz crew arrives at the space station, Maezawa has a list of things he would like to do in space, such as playing golf. The Japanese billionaire who earned his wealth via e-commerce firms, including fashion company Zozotown is expected to spend 11 days on the ISS and then return to Earth. The billionaire is the first visitor to take off for the ISS in the last few years.
All of this is, in part, to assist Maezawa to prepare to be the first person to travel to the moon’s orbit using SpaceX’s dearMoon program that will see him fly into space on the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in 2023. In the main, it’s an achievement of his lifelong dream of going into space.
Maezawa, a maverick billionaire, is on quite good terms with the space billionaire Elon Musk. Yusaku was a drummer in the punk group, and, in 2013, the billionaire launched a television show that aimed at finding him a girlfriend to accompany him in space. However, it was later canceled. Maezawa has also revealed in March that he was seeking eight people who would join the journey to the moon without the expense, but they must need to be professionals who can record his journey magnificently.
To prepare for the ISS mission, Maezawa had to undergo an intense training regimen before the launch. This involved sleeping on an inclined bed and being spun in circles in chairs. The Japanese billionaire has compared this similar to “torture” on social media and posted training pictures.
Source: interestingengineering
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