Does anyone know the name of the guy who paid 22 million dollars to go to space?

Question

Does anyone know the name of the guy who paid 22 million dollars to go to space?

Answer 1

There have been two....read below...

At the age of 22, South African Mark Shuttleworth founded ThawteConsulting, the first non-U.S. company to help improve the security of business transactions on the Internet. Four years later, the Cape Town native sold his company for 400 million dollars.

Today, Shuttleworth is using the earnings for a lofty goal: to become the first African citizen in space.

Shuttleworth was inspired by a successful flight to the International Space Station a year ago by Californian multimillionaire Dennis Tito, the world's first "space tourist." So the young South African contacted Space Adventures, a Virginia-based space tourism company, which succeeded in booking Shuttleworth a seat aboard the Soyuz, the Russian space capsule that will take him to the International Space Station as part of an eight-day mission to replace an emergency re-entry capsule.

Unlike NASA, the Russian Aviation and Space Agency is increasingly dependent on the private sector for funding. Engineering contracts, private satellite launches, and paying passengers represent an important source of revenue. Shuttleworth is reported to have paid about 20 million dollars for his seat—the same amount as Tito.

Unlike his predecesor, however, Shuttleworth has been working closely with NASA prior to his take off—he even spent five days training at Houston's Johnson Space Center. By the time he signed a contract with RASA last December, Shuttleworth had met a preliminary draft of space travel requirements the international partners of the ISS have since officially set to gauge a space tourist's physical and psychological condition and language abilities.

For the past nine months, Shuttleworth has worked with interpreters, flight instructors, and scientists at the Russian training facility in Star City, 43 miles (70 kilometers) north of Moscow. National Geographic Adventure talked with him as he prepared for his slated launch on April 25.

How did you get the opportunity to go to the International Space Station?

I remember discussing the idea of going with my parents in 1996. I knew that if I wanted to get into space without becoming an astronaut, I would have to go to Russia. When Dennis Tito signed a contract to go to the ISS, I was very interested and approached the Russian Aviation and Space Agency. In May of 2001 they responded to my inquiry, and gave me some initial physical tests. Once I passed, we entered contract negotiations and then I began training for the flight.