[Week VI] Article

First clown in Space

Guy Laliberte, the 50-year-old Canadian Billionaire and founder of the circus arts and theatre performance Cirque du Soleil, is the first clown to travel in space for performing an entertainment and had arrived safely back on Earth a few weeks ago.

He was greeted by an overwhelming crowd of friends and family before he blasts off to space with two other astronauts, the Russian cosmonaut named Gennady Padalka and US astronaut Michael Barratt. Among the cheering crowd were Laliberte’s partner Claudia Barilla (former model) and the Quebec singing star Garou.

Laliberte was scheduled to lift off aboard a Soyuz spacecraft with Surayev and Williams for a two-day trip to the orbiting lab. Laliberte had stayed in space for 12 days. He had also paid $35 million for his flight and has a 95% stake in Cirque du Soleil.

The Soyuz team is scheduled to continue to construct of the space station. The station has already become the largest artificial satellite weighing more than 710,000 pounds and orbiting the Earth at 220 miles high. The space station has cost more than $100 billion paid by the United States, Japan, Russia, Canada, and the 18-nation European Space Agency.

Guy Laliberte could be the last space tourist for some time as seats will be limited aboard the Soyuz once NASA takes its long-serving shuttles out of service. Eric Anderson, the chief executive officer of Space Adventures, said that his company will try to make sure that at least three tourists get the chance to travel to space each year despite the shuttle’s retirement.

ANDERSON: I keep hearing that space tourism is ending and it never seems to be true. One way to keep the program alive would be the increase number of Russian Soyuz mission.