Tourist trip to Baikonur.

“This is the greatest adventure of my life. I visited heaven and floated like an angel, looking down at the Earth. I knew it would be a risky adventure and prepared for the worst. However, I felt euphoria all six days.”

Dennis Anthony Tito.

Tourist cosmonaut takes off from Baikonur.

Dennis Tito was born on August 8, 1940 in New York City in the borough of Queens (USA). In 1962, he graduated from New York University College of Engineering with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics.
In 1963, Tito began working as an aerospace engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he took part in the program of robotic flights to Mars and Venus. He was involved in calculating the flight trajectories of interplanetary stations of the Mariner type.
In 1964 he received a Master of Science (engineering technology) from the Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute. In 1970, Tito graduated from the Aderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1972 he founded Wilshere Associates Inc. in Santa Monica (California, USA).
This company is a provider of services in the field of investment management and technology. According to some publications, he made money for his flight by selling computer programs to American investors that allowed him to reinforce the trader’s intuition with machine calculations and knowledge.
Tito's product, called Omega, is still one of the most popular platforms for creating trading robots: automatic trading systems capable of independently managing capital without human intervention. In the summer of 2003, he was included in the board of directors of the X-Prize Foundation. According to a report from Russian Newsweek magazine (July 2008), unconfirmed by other sources, Dennis Tito initially planned to make a suborbital flight, but since at that time such services were not provided or offered by anyone, he was asked to make a flight to the orbital station.
In 2000, he was selected by MirCorp as a space tourist to fly to the Mir orbital station. On June 19, 2000, he was officially presented at the MirCorp press conference in Star City. In August 2000, he began taking a training course at the Russian State Research Institute of the Cosmonaut Training Center under the space flight participant program.
However, on November 19, 2000, he was forced to interrupt preparations due to the decision taken by the Russian Government to flood the Mir station. On December 28, 2000, by decision of the SMVC, Tito became part of the main crew of the first Russian expedition to visit the International Space Station (ISS), together with Talgat Musabaev (crew commander) and Yuri Baturin (research cosmonaut).
n January 30, 2001, he signed a contract worth $20 million for a flight to the ISS with Rosaviakosmos (with the participation of the Space Adventures company). On February 12, 2001, he began preparing for the flight as part of the main crew.
t the TsPK he not only underwent physical training, but also mastered the basics of controlling a spacecraft, right down to its manual docking with the ISS - in case the automation fails. During the pre-flight exam, he completed all the tasks without errors and proved that he could take a place in the crew.
Preparations ended on April 10, 2001. On April 8, 2001, Dennis Tito launched on his first and only space flight aboard the Soyuz TM-32 spacecraft as a participant in the space flight under the EP-1 program. He orbited the Earth 128 times, so each orbit around the Earth cost him $150,000.
Returned to Earth on the descent module of the Soyuz TM-31 spacecraft. The flight duration was 7 days 22 hours 4 minutes 8 seconds. However, there were some incidents. During the launch of the ship, Tito had heart problems, and already in orbit, having pushed off strongly from the floor, he smashed his head on the ship's hatch.
In both cases, he was provided medical assistance by cosmonaut Talgat Musabaev, for which he received from Tito the title “baby-nurse number 1” (“nanny number one”). Despite this, the first The space tourist was pleased with the flight.
American multimillionaire Dennis Tito, known as history's first space tourist, plans to fly into space again, this time around the moon with his young wife   Akiko. She is a professional pilot and dreams of space. On the flight to the Moon on the SpaceX ship, it is planned to take 10 people on board. Ticket prices are unknown.

Authority and photos by:
https://znanierussia.ru/articles/%D0%A2%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BE