What year did Dennis Tito become the first space tourist, paying $19 million to board the International Space Station?
Space tourism potential space tourists to visit Mir in order to offset some of its maintenance costs. Dennis Tito, an American businessman and former JPL scientist, became their first candidate. When the decision was made to de-orbit Mir, Tito managed to switch his trip to the International Space Station (ISS) through a deal between MirCorp and US-based Space Adventures, Ltd. Dennis Tito visited the ISS for seven days in April-May 2001, becoming the world's first "fee-paying" space tourist. Tito was followed in April 2002 by South African Mark Shuttleworth (Soyuz TM-34). The third was Gregory Olsen in October 2005 (Soyuz TMA-7). In
International Space Station and NASA initially resisted training Dennis Tito, the first man to pay for his own passage to the ISS. Anousheh Ansari became the first Iranian in space and the first self-funded woman to fly to the station. Officials reported that her education and experience make her much more than a tourist, and her performance in training had been "excellent." Ansari herself dismisses the idea that she is a tourist. She did Russian and European studies involving medicine and microbiology during her 10-day stay. The documentary "Space Tourists" follows her journey to the station, where she fulfilled "an age-old dream of