Japanese billionaire who traveled to space recommends the experience

Japanese businessman Yusaku Maezawa, who returned to Earth after a 12-day stay at the International Space Station (ISS), this Wednesday (22) advised wealthy elites to also enjoy this type of tourism.

“I would like as many people as possible – and as many people with power and influence as possible – to visit the space,” Maezawa said at a press conference at the cosmonaut training center outside Moscow, Russia.

“They would see the Earth from a different perspective and they would also treat it completely differently,” he added.

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Along with his assistant Yozo Hirano, Maezawa, a 46-year-old entrepreneur who made his fortune in internet fashion retail, spent 12 days at ISS in December, where he shared his life in space through videos to millions of subscribers on his channel. on Youtube.

Accompanied by cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, the Japanese returned to Earth last Monday, aboard a Soyuz capsule belonging to the Russian space agency Roscosmos, which is trying to capture part of the revenue generated by space tourism, a sector in full swing.

The Japanese tycoon considered that the “ideal length” of a tourist’s stay on the ISS would be 20 days, so that he could have more time to adapt to zero gravity.

In addition, Maezawa reaffirmed on Wednesday his next dream: to travel around the Moon in 2023, with eight other people, aboard a spacecraft belonging to the specialized company SpaceX.

The lucrative private spaceflight sector has been boosted recently by competition between private companies SpaceX and Blue Origin, owned by US tycoons Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, respectively, and also by Virgin Galactic, owned by Briton Richard Branson.