Russia to send Japan tycoon to ISS

BAIKONUR: Russia today will send Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to the International Space Station in a move marking Moscow’s return to the booming space tourism business. One of Japan’s richest men, Maezawa, 46, will blast off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan accompanied by his assistant, Yozo Hirano. The mission will end a decade-long pause in Russia’s space tourism programme that has not accepted tourists since Canada’s Cirque du Soleil co-founder Guy Laliberte in 2009.