Dennis Tito
Dennis Tito was not the first “amateur” to blast into space. Previously, Japanese TV journalist Toyohiro Akiyama had flown on a commercial mission to the Russian space station Mir. Tito was the first to pay for his own ticket, thus earning the designation of the first space tourist.
The Tito mission took place in the context of the controversy over the decision by the major Russian space company RSC Energia to work with MirCorp to create a commercial space station.
The NASA space agency immediately cancelled planned high level meetings between the Russian and US space agencies. Their legal team declared that a bill would be sent for any damages caused by the flight of Tito.
Koptev stated: "In November 2000, we informed NASA that we planned to launch Tito to ...". He did not recall NASA expressing any negative reaction at that time. That situation changed, however, as the two space powers entered into a standoff in which neither would back down.
Koptev, the head of the Russian Space Agency, later told reporters: “Our legal advisors told us that the fine for any misdoing aboard the station, including damage to morale, could exceed the money that we had earned from Tito's contract, and could even exceed Russia's space budgetary capacity."
The NASA administrator, implied that Dennis Tito was not an American patriot and U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland compared the behavior of all those concerned with the space tourist program to that of “pimps.”
In addition, on several occasions the Russians claimed that they had not been reimbursed by MirCorp for services. MirCorp founder Walt Anderson was later charged with federal tax evasion, plead guilty, and was sentenced to nine years in federal prison.
Read more about this topic: Mir Corp