Japanese seniors enthusiastic for space tourism
May 17, 2005 16: 42 EST
Last week, Club Tourism, a Tokyo based company, offered to take seven Japanese people into space in 2008. Within a day, the company received 40 enquiries. Surprisingly, many of the would-be astronauts were in their 50s and older.
The interest in space travel by Japan’s older citizens didn’t surprise everybody, though. In a recent study, the University of Tokyo found that 80 percent of Japanese people up to age 40 wanted to go into space and 30 percent of Japanese in their 60s and 70s also hoped to.
Space Adventures taps into Japanese market
Japan (the world’s second largest economy) is an ideal location to recruit future space tourists. At least one company is banking on it. Space Adventures, the company that put private citizens Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth into space, recently opened a branch in Tokyo.
"We have seen a trend in the last 18 months of a growing interest in private space exploration from Japan," Space Adventure chief executive Eric Anderson said in a statement.
Club tourism is offering a 25 minute ride in outer space. The company is associated with Virgin Galactic, part of British tycoon Richard Branson's Virgin group, which aims to build a private spaceship to make space tourism a reality.
Image courtesy of www.nasda.go.jp.
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