Dennis Tito, an American engineer, and multimillionaire was…

Dennis Tito, an American engineer, and multimillionaire was the first space tourist to fund his own trip into space. In 2001, he spent nearly eight days in orbit as a crew member of ISS EP-1, a visiting mission to the International Space Station, after being accepted by the Russian Federal Space Agency as a candidate for a commercial spaceflight. Tito met criticism from NASA before the launch, primarily from Daniel Goldin, at that time the Administrator of NASA, who considered it inappropriate for a tourist to take a ride into space. In the decade since Dennis Tito journeyed to the International Space Station, eight private citizens have paid the $20 million fee to travel to space, but it is believed that this number could increase fifteen-fold by 2020. A web-based survey suggested that over 70% of those surveyed were interested in traveling to space, 88% wanted to spacewalk, and 21% liked the idea of staying in a space hotel.