A Japanese businessman has been picked as a candidate to be the next -- and fourth -- private citizen to visit the International Space Station, the Russian Space Agency said Monday on its website.

It identifies the man only by the name of Enomoto, which could refer to Japanese investor Daisuke Enomoto, 34, who has been publishing his preparations for a space trip on his website. He was an executive at the Internet company Livedoor Co.

The first space tourist was U.S. businessman Dennis Tito, who visited the ISS in 2001. He was followed by Mark Shuttleworth from South Africa and U.S. businessman Gregory Olsen. If confirmed, Enomoto will be the first Japanese private citizen making a space trip.

He has already passed a physical and could travel in space next fall, according to the agency.

Space trips by private citizens have been arranged by Space Adventures Ltd., a U.S. space tourism company working in partnership with the Russian government.

Travelers board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to visit the ISS orbiting around the Earth for a weeklong stay. Expenses, including training, are billed at $20 million.

FUKUOKA -- Livedoor Co. President Takafumi Horie has announced he wants to create a space tourism business, sending people into the celestial beyond by 2008.

Horie plans to use old Cold War-era Soviet spacecraft and said he wants to significantly cut the cost of space tourism from the multi-million dollar fees that have been paid up until now.

"Space travel now costs around 2.2 billion yen," Horie said during a space business convention in Fukuoka on the weekend. "I want to cut that cost down to one-fifth or one-tenth of the current price."...more...

Midwinter wrote:Yahoo News had quoted this guy saying how when he was up there, he wanted to dress up as Gundam's Char. It's nice to know he's taking it seriously

Japan痴]Enomoto is taking Russian language courses [/B]and is immersed in the first phase of his cosmonaut training, Space Adventures spokesperson Stacey Tearne told SPACE.com. Of his 10 days in Earth orbit, about eight of them will be aboard the International Space Station (ISS) ...more

• What's this button do?
  
• My cosplay helmet has jammed the escape hatch.
  
• I just stirred the tanks.
  
• Look! My poo's floating!
  
• I want to go home now.

-snip-

• I want to go home now.

Moscow - A glaring set of overalls that Japanese 'space tourist' Daisuke Enomoto will wear on board the International Space Station in autumn may have an unsettling effect on longterm occupants of the orbiter, experts warned Monday.

While Russian crewmen wear grey work fatigues and US astronauts blue shorts and T-shirts during six-month ISS flights, Enomoto opted for a motorycle speedway-style orange outfit with red, yellow and white flashes for his week-long stay.

The attire could cause colour fatigue and irritation for cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov, NASA's John Phillips and German astronaut Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency, a space official told the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper.

It was too late for alterations, however, as the costume has already been sent to the station with a supply ship.

Enomoto, 35, said earlier he wanted to spend his time in space dressed in a copy of the outfit worn by 'Char Aznable', an ace pilot in the 'Gundam' robot animation series.

He also planned to build a plastic model of a robot from the series while in orbit.

The businessman, who made his fortune in the internet industry, is paying around 20 million US dollars to fly to the ISS with a visiting Russian crew.

Due to launch in September on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan, he will become the fourth commercial space traveller to visit the station . . . more

kurohinge1 wrote:ISS station braces for 'loud' Japanese space suit[/URL][/SIZE]

The businessman, who made his fortune in the internet industry, is paying around 20 million US dollars to fly to the ISS with a visiting Russian crew.

gboothe wrote:
Kuro, I think he will be able to cosplay it as he wants. You have to remember he has something the rest of those clowns on the ISS don't have!

The businessman, who made his fortune in the internet industry, is paying around 20 million US dollars to fly to the ISS with a visiting Russian crew.

A ticket!

Japanese Space Tourist Pulled from ISS Flight for Medical ReasonsSpace News : 21 August 200610:13 a.m. ET
MOSCOW – A board of Russian medics has deemed a Japanese businessman – who has been preparing to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) as a tourist on board of a Russian crew craft – unfit to fly to space, a Russian official said Monday
"He is being taken off that flight for medical reasons," a spokesman for Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) said referring to Daisuke – Dice-K – Enomoto, 34. "It is definite that he will not fly on Sept. 14,".....

Taro Toporific wrote:A board of Russian medics has deemed a Japanese too whimpy to fly....

kurohinge1 wrote: when faced with the choice of an overgrown male cosplayer or a feisty lass who's keen to ride a rocket, there would have been very little "thinking time" required.

Japanese millionaire Daisuke Enomoto had planned to dress up as his favorite cartoon character in outer space and spent $21 million to make it happen. Now he claims the company that was supposed make his dream come true brushed him aside with little more than a "sorry, no refunds." A federal judge heard arguments Friday in Enomoto's lawsuit against Virginia-based Space Adventures, a firm that made its name brokering deals with the Russian space agency to put half a dozen "space tourists" in orbit for fees of $20 million or more. Space Adventures wants the lawsuit thrown out, saying that Enomoto was disqualified because of a chronic kidney-stone condition. They say his money is nonrefundable...more...