Dennis Tito and His Wife, Will be the First Tourists to Fly a Starship Rocket Around the Moon

Dennis Tito dan istrinya, Akiko, bakal terbang mengelilingi Bulan. (foto: twitter @spacex)

JAKARTA – Billionaire Elon Musk's space company SpaceX announced on Wednesday, October 12 that it will take the world's first space tourists, Dennis Tito and his wife Akiko, to fly around the moon on a Starship rocket.

Tito (82 years old), is an engineer who is also a financial analyst. He became the first private individual to pay for space travel on Russia's Soyuz TM-32 mission in 2001. At that time he spent nearly eight days on the International Space Station (ISS).

Dennis and Akiko Tito are the first two crewmembers on Starship’s second commercial spaceflight around the Moon → https://t.co/z2Z9iVGw8x pic.twitter.com/07RHJlb6Dc

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 12, 2022

Tito's planned trip of about a week with SpaceX is a flight on a Starship rocket just 200 kilometers from the moon. But it went around and didn't land on its surface.

Tito and his wife are the first crew members announced for the second series commercial space flight from Starship to circle the moon. However, SpaceX did not mention the costs that must be borne by Tito to fly on the mission.

SpaceX has yet to announce an exact launch date for Starship, which is the focus and ambition of Tesla CEO Elon Musk to transport humans and cargo to the moon and Mars. However, the world's richest man said he aims to send a rocket into orbit for the first time as early as next month.

Companies including SpaceX and Virgin Galactic founded by Richard Branson are trying to make space travel a reality, while Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin currently offers sub-orbital joyrides that reach altitudes of about 350.000 feet (106 km).