The Solar System

Space travel is not a dream any more. Space tourism is a reality. The blueprints for the first space hotel are ready and the lucky ones are preparing to be space tourists.

Dennis Tito

Dennis Anthony Tito (born August 8, 1940 in Queens, New York) is a United States multimillionaire who gained celebrity status by becoming the first space tourist to pay for his own ticket. Tito has a Bachelor of Science in Astronautics and Aeronautics from New York University, 1962 and he later received a Master of Science in 125Engineering Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York. He received an honorary doctorate of engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on 18 May 2002 and is a former scientist of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 1972 he founded Wilshire Associates, a leading provider of investment management, consulting and technology services in Santa Monica, California, Tito serves an international clientele representing assets of $12.5 trillion. Wilshire relies on the field of quantitative analytics, which uses mathematical tools to analyze market risks - a methodology Tito is credited with helping to develop by applying the same techniques he used to determine a spacecraft's path at JPL. Despite a career change from aerospace engineering to investment management, Tito never lost his interest in, and commitment to, space exploration.

Tito with Talgat Musabayev (commander) and Yuri Baturin (flight engineer), joined Soyuz TM-32 on April 28th, 2001, spending 7 days, 22 hours, 4 minutes in orbit, and docked with the ISS. Tito paid 20 million United States dollars for his trip.

"It is not going to be a holiday (but) to me it is a life's dream and the start of a new career," Tito told journalists, during a break from training for the mission.

He first looked into a space vacation in 1991, on a trip to Moscow. And when he did finally get hold of a ticket into space he suddenly found it to be null and void thanks to Russia's decision to scuttle the Mir space station before it fell uncontrollably from the sky.

Russian space officials later offered him a ride on a Russian rocket ship supplying the ISS. Tito's former employer - Nasa - initially objected to the trip, citing safety concerns. But international space officials finally agreed that Tito could fly, subject to him signing a deal relieving all national space agencies of responsibility in the event of a tragedy. Tito also signed a contract saying he will pay for any breakages he causes and he is banned from US segments of the ISS unescorted.

 Tito may be the first to pay for a trip into in space, but he is not the first civilian to make the journey. One of Nasa's early attempts to put a non-professional in space ended in disaster when teacher Christa McAuliffe and the crew she was flying with were killed in the Challenger explosion in 1986.

Tito also follows confectionery scientist Helen Sharman, who in 1991 beat thousands to become Britain's first astronaut, a Japanese journalist and a member of the Saudi royal family, who both went to Mir.