Guy Laliberte

Space Tourist Guy Laliberte was the original founder and owner of Cirque du Soleil and has currently become the official first space clown when he blasted off for a 12-day space trip to the International Space Station (ISS).

Guy Laliberte

Launched from the Baikonur on a Russian Rocket in 2009, Laliberte was carried along with a cosmonaut and an astronaut on the Soyuz capsule. Friends and family sent off Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev and United States astronaut Jeffrey Williams along with Laliberte. Their arrival was expected to be on a Friday at the outpost orbital.

Fifty year old Laliberte aimed to promote the increasing shortage of clean water in the world. The former entertainer wore a red bulbous clown nose just before boarding the Soyuz capsule and on the ISS as well.
Having paid 35 million dollars for this trip, Space Tourist Guy Laliberte intended to get the most of his 12-days in outer space. Guy Laliberte has a 95 percent stake in Cirque du Soleil. The theater performance and circus arts company had turned 26 years old on September 30, 2010.

Possibly one of the last private ISS visitors, Laliberte has said that he had tried to persuade his fellow astronauts to wear clown noses as well.

Fifty-year old Laliberte aimed to make the world highly aware of the ever-shortening supply of clean water in the world. Being Canadian, he is part of a country that contains 20-percent of the world's freshwater and at the same time, half of one percent of the global population. He says that most people think that water is a resource that is inexhaustible.

The truth is that this is not the reality of the situation and thus, Laliberte donated $100 million of his personal money in a period of 20 for the improvement of water and its availability throughout the globe. He is doing this through his charity called the One Drop Foundation.

Space Tourist Guy Laliberte adds that generally, Canadians will learn to use water in a more conservative way and that most Canadians are already aware of this world problem.

As NASA retires is program for shuttles and leaves the ferrying of astronauts to the Russian space agency, this may be the last trip to the ISS of a private person we will be hearing about for years to come.

However, Eric Anderson, the Chief Executive of Space Adventures, which books the flights states that he will try and ensure at least three tourists per year will be able to visit the space station, no matter what the rumors are regarding the retirement of this possibility. Increasing the number of missions of the Russian Soyuz will most likely keep the program alive and kicking.