Guy Laliberté, a Canadian philanthropist and founder of the world-famous Cirque du Soleil is the latest space tourist to blast off for the International Space Station. He boarded the Soyuz craft on Wednesday wearing a clown’s red-nose and purportedly packing a few extra bulbous schnozes for his fellow cosmonauts, Russian Maxim Surayev and American astronaut Jeffrey Willias.
Laliberté is not footing the $35 million bill simply to clown around in zero gravity. He is on a unique social/humanitarian mission, using the International Space Station as a platform to promote awareness of water-related issues, specifically how this valuable resource is protected and shared. Laliberté will lead a unique “poetic social” performance from aboard the ISS for the One Drop Foundation that he created in 2007.
Man-Booker prize winner Yann Martel has written a poetic tale for the occasion that will be read by Laliberté along with prominent personalities from 14 cities around the world and transmitted from the ISS. The two-hour event entitled “Moving Stars and Earth for Water” will be live-streamed on the One Drop foundation Web site and will feature such prominent figures as former vice-president Al Gore, Colombian pop star, Shakira, and the rock band, U2.
The 50-year-old Laliberté started as a street performer and rose to an estimated net worth of $2.5 billion after founding Cirque du Soleil. He told AP: “Like many kids, I grew up in the generation of space exploration. But I remember that back then, what overcame me was not the desire to travel in space, but the belief that fairy tales were possible, and that kind of shaped my way of seeing life.”
On Wednesday, the space capsule soared from the same launch pad from which Yuri Gagarin left in 1961 on the first human trip into orbit. It’s due to arrive on Friday at the ISS and Laliberté’s vision of an artistic mission in space will be broadcast to the world on Oct 9th.