In space, on a joyride

In 2011, Space Adventures, a space tourism company that successfully sent seven clients to orbital journey, suggested the number of space tourists could reach 140 by 2020 but little changed since then

On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin saw the world in a way that no human had seen before — from the edge of outer space, though the criteria of determining a spaceflight vary. Since then, around 570 people have spent a cumulative 77 years up there but only eight of them for recreational purposes and all between 2001 and 2009. The first space tourist, Dennis Anthony Tito, had paid about $20 million for spending seven days, 22 hours, and four minutes in space and orbiting the Earth 128 times, after hitching a ride on Soyuz TM-32 on April 28, 2001.

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