Will play bio – and scatter money: 100 billionaire goals in space

The launch and arrival at the space station of Japanese billionaire Yusaku Mazawa

(Credit: Reuters)

100 things to do in 12 days, off Earth: A Japanese billionaire and film producer about whom they took off into space yesterday (Wednesday) and arrived at the International Space Station a few hours later. This is the first visit of space tourists who have been paying for the trip to the space station for more than a decade.

Fashion tycoon Yosaku Mazawa and producer Yuzu Hirano, who is filming a movie about his journey, took off for the space station with a Russian Soyuz rocket, along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Mysurkin. The launch took place from the Baikonur space base in Kazakhstan, and six hours later they arrived at the space station. Mazwa and Hirano will stay 12 days in space, the amount Mazava paid for the trip has not been announced. Watch the launch and their arrival at the space station.

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Yusaku Mazawa. The first space tourist on the space station since 2009

(Photo: epa)

The company organizing the flight said Mazawa had prepared a list of 100 things to do in space, after asking the public to come up with ideas. According to Space Adventures president Tom Shelley, “the list includes fun activities and simple things from everyday life to more serious things.” “His goal is to share the experience of being in space with the general public,” he said.

Among other things, Mazawa intends to be photographed in space, fly a paper airplane, play bio and soap bubbles, go to the bathroom, play, do a haircut without gravity – and even play badminton with a cosmonaut. In the full list, Which can be seen here, also appears a line with a question mark – to scatter money?

A year ago this is exactly what Mazawa did, giving $ 9 million to a thousand Japanese who tweeted his tweet ($ 1,000 each). In 2019, he broke the Twitter tweet record by promising to give $ 925,000 to 100 happy users. The reason – to check if “money affects happiness”. Now he intends to do the same from the space station.

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The two Japanese and the Russian cosmonaut

(Photo: Pavel Kassin / Roscosmos Space Agency via AP)

“I would like to look at the Earth from space. I want to experience gravity,” the 46-year-old Mazawa said at a news conference before takeoff. “And I also have a personal expectation – I wonder how space will change me, how I will change after this space flight.” He sounded excited beforehand when he said, “I want to tell you that dreams do come true.”

Mazawa made his fortune in the fashion industry and set up Japan’s largest fashion store website, Zuzotown. Forbes estimates that his fortune is estimated at $ 2 billion. The tycoon also bought tickets for the moon flight in Alon Musk’s ‘Starship’ spacecraft, which is scheduled to take off in the coming years. He will join the campaign for eight winners of the competition.

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