“In a way, he will be more of a work supervisor than a cruise director,” said López-Alegría.
In an interview, Connor acknowledged that many people question the value of wealthy people paying millions for trips like this. “I understand that people have questions,” he said. “People criticize, ‘Hey, with all the problems that are going on, why the hell are these guys spending all that money to go to space?'”
But he replied that Kids & Community Partners, his company’s charity arm, was planning to spend $ 400 million over the next 10 years on programs to help children and to fund medical research. In all, he said he would end up donating half of his net worth to charities. And about 30 percent of its fortune will go to what the company calls “key associates”.
“Only 20% will remain in my family,” said Connor. “So I think I was just hoping that if people were going to criticize or slander me for doing that, they would at least have the context of what I believe.”
Space Adventures announced last year that it also had an agreement with SpaceX to launch a Crew Dragon to take tourists on an orbiting trip around the Earth, but did not provide further details on when that mission could take off. It also resumed selling tourist trips to the Russian Soyuz rocket space station. Two customers are scheduled to launch on a flight later this year.
Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese fashion entrepreneur, also signed up for a SpaceX tourist trip, but it would be a trip around the moon several years from now on a giant rocket called Starship that is still in development.
Those who cannot afford an orbital trip will soon have cheaper options, in the price range of hundreds of thousands of dollars, for short rides up and down to the edge of space and back, where they can experience a few minutes of absence of Weight.