Rs 400 crore! This is what a ride to space station cost - Meet the first private space crew

Who would not want to travel to a space station high up above the earth? Well, though everyone would be fascinated to have a one-in-a-life-time opportunity to see a space station, but it is not something everyone could afford. Rs 400 crore a person is what it takes to travel to space station. Yes, you heard it right! These three billionaires will be paying Rs 400 crore rupees each to board SpaceX rocket to travel to the space station next year.  

They’ll be led by a former NASA astronaut now working for Axiom Space, the Houston company that arranged the trip for next January.

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The development comes after the first private space station crew was introduced on Tuesday, said a DNA report.  

The three people who have been selected to travel to the space station are all billionaires. Each is giving 400 crores rupees. The first crew will spend eight days at the space station, and will take one or two days to get there aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule following liftoff from Cape Canaveral.  

Axiom’s first customers include Larry Connor, a real estate and tech entrepreneur from Dayton, Ohio, Canadian financier Mark Pathy and Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe, a close friend of Israel’s first astronaut Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the space shuttle Columbia accident in 2003. Each of these first paying customers intends to perform science research in orbit, along with educational outreach.  

These people will be led by a former NASA astronaut. These astronauts are now working for Axiom Space. The Houston company has arranged the trip to be proposed in January. Each of the private astronauts had to pass medical tests and will get 15 weeks of training.  

The 70-year-old Connor will become the second-oldest person to fly in space, after John Glenn's shuttle flight in 1998 at age 77. He'll also serve under Lopez-Alegria as the capsule pilot.  

Russia has been in the off-the-planet tourism business for years, selling rides to the International Space Station since 2001. Other space companies like Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin plan to take paying customers on up-and-down flights lasting just minutes. These trips, much more affordable with seats going for hundreds of thousands versus millions could kick off this year.

The space station is about 420 km from the Earth. Many people will want to go there, but this dream of only three people is being fulfilled. For this, the three men are each paying $55 million to fly on a SpaceX rocket.