One of the two passengers on a Russian rocket that blasted off towards the International Space Station was a Japanese billionaire.
Yusaku Maezawa, the founder of Zozo, a successful online fashion business, and his production assistant, Yozo Hirano, became the first space tourists to travel for more than a decade on Wednesday.
Maezawa, a noted art collector who has a net worth of $1.9 billion, has said that he wants to go around the moon on a Musk rocket.
Alexander Misurkin, Yusaku Maezawa, and Yozo Hirano were at the launch site. The press service handout is from the EPA.
Maezawa and his crew left their hotel in Baikonur to listen to a Soviet-era song before their flights. The song was partially sung in Japanese.
Maezawa was waved off by his family and friends as he was driven to get his spacesuit fitted.
The tycoon and his wife boarded a three-seat Soyuz spaceship piloted by the Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin in the run-up to their launch from the cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
He told reporters on the eve of his journey that he was excited. I feel like an elementary school student about to go on an outing. I did not think I would be able to go to space. I used to enjoy the stars and heavenly bodies. I feel fortunate to have this opportunity to fulfill my dream.
The 46-year-old used social media to chronicle the 100 days he spent preparing for the mission, but admitted that sitting in a spinning chair had been like torture.
He and Hirano, a film producer, will document daily life on the space station, where theentrepreneur will perform 100 tasks for the tycoon's YouTube channel, which has more than 750,000 subscribers.
Maezawa will be the first private passenger on the moon voyage when he flies on the SpaceX rocket.
He is looking for eight people who are not necessarily artists to join him on the trip, which he will pay for himself. Since last year, he has received more than a million applications.
Maezawa is seen as something of a maverick in his native country, where he has made headlines with his liking for private jets, supercars and works of art.
He promised to give away 1m each to 1,000 of his followers as a social experiment, and created a frenzy on the social networking site. He abandoned the online contest after attracting almost 30,000 applicants.
