The billionaire who launched a high-flying circus act into a global entertainment powerhouse is said to be setting his personal sights even higher: Outer space.
Guy Laliberté, the fire-eating stilt-walker who founded the Cirque du Soleil, is identified as the next tourist willing to shell out as much as $35-million to blast into orbit as a paying visitor to the International Space Station.
Neither the Cirque du Soleil nor the U.S. company brokering the trip would confirm the news.
But news agencies and space watchers have identified Mr. Laliberté as the world's next amateur astronaut.
NASA Watch, which named Mr. Laliberté on its website yesterday, says its information comes from several well-placed sources.
"He's available to do the training at the right time, and obviously money is not an issue," said Vancouver-based Marc Boucher, contributing editor of the site.
"He'll be able to try out some of his acrobatic stuff in zero gravity," he added.
The Canadian Space Agency is to make an announcement at its Montreal-area headquarters tomorrow to unveil what it calls "the first Canadian space explorer." The agency is billing the voyage as "the first philanthropic mission to the International Space Station."
If he goes, Mr. Laliberté follows in a line of adventurers with the required combination of deep pockets and unfilled ambitions to allow them to travel as private astronauts.
With a personal fortune pegged at $2.5-billion, the 49-year-old Mr. Laliberté can certainly afford it. And this year marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of the circus he propelled to international fame from its beginnings as street performance.
Known for his high living, wild Grand Prix parties, poker prowess and genius at merging business acumen with creativity, Mr. Laliberté has long said he believed in expanding his horizons.
Even at the height of his fame, he held to the same dreams.
"I still want to travel, I still want to entertain, and I most certainly still want to have fun," he said.
He has also created a foundation, One Drop, devoted to ensuring access to fresh water in the developing world.
Former NASA scientist Keith Cowing, editor of the NASA Watch website, said Mr. Laliberté fits the profile of paying space tourists that preceded him.
He would become the seventh since the first trip in 2001 by Dennis Tito.
"He has money, he's outgoing, and he tends to do extravagant things," Mr. Cowing said from Washington, D.C.
"He's probably going to be one of the more flamboyant people to go."
Space tourists tend to combine the thrill with a charitable or educational purpose, Mr. Cowing added.
"Virtually everyone who has gone has felt they had a purpose other than personal reasons."
Though the most extravagant, Mr. Laliberté would not be the first Canadian at the space station this year.
Astronaut Robert Thirsk is on a six-month mission at the space lab and Julie Payette is set to go in June for 16 days.
The Canadian Space Agency has been preparing for a Canadian space tourist for years. In 2001, it met with the heads of space agencies from four other countries and concluded that paying tourists would have to meet the same training and health criteria as professional astronauts.
"It clearly recognizes there'll be others than just professional astronauts who'll fly to the station," Mac Evans, then president of the Canadian Space Agency, told The Globe and Mail at the time.
"All of these astronauts, whether they're professionals or not, will be subject to these criteria."
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Canada's first amateur astronaut
If he blasts off to space, Guy Laliberté would become the first Canadian and seventh private-citizen-turned-space-explorer.
Six people have flown with Space Adventures Ltd., the U.S. company that co-ordinates space trips for paying tourists.
2001: American businessman Dennis Tito becomes the first tourist to visit the International Space Station.
