William Atkins
Wednesday, 30 September 2009 18:50
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 2
Founder of Cirque du Soleil (French for "Circus of the Sun"), Guy Labiberté, was blasted into space onboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on September 30, 2009. The Canadian space tourist will promote water awareness during his stay at the International Space Station.
The Soyuz
TMA-16 spaceship was launched into space at 3:14 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (0714 Greenwich Mean Time [GMT]) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
With a scheduled docking at the ISS on October 2, 2009, Labiberté was one of three crewmembers of the flight.
Two members of the Space Station crew join him on the flight: ISS Expedition 21 commander and Russian cosmonaut Maksim Surayev and ISS Expedition 21 flight engineer and U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Williams
Reportedly, Labiberté paid $35 million for his 11-day stay at the orbiting station in space.
Laliberté is the founder and chief executive officer of
Cirque du Soleil. He holds 95% of the stock in the reportedly $1.2 billion company.
On October 29, 2007, Laliberté announced the beginning of the non-profit
ONE DROP Foundation, whose mission is to fight poverty around the world by ensuring access to water for all people. He will promote that mission during his trip in space.
Page two talks about Laliberté's mission to space.
