Y’know, this is really starting to tick me off. This guy is not the first space tourist.

That title belongs to Toyohiro Akiyama, a Japanese journalist who visited Mir in 1989. And in May 1991, a British chemist named Helen Sharman won a contest, the prize being a trip to Mir.

And let’s not forget Bill Nelson, the US Congressman who went up on the Columbia Shuttle in 1986. (Perhaps the ultimate Congressional junket?)

And, last but not least, let’s not exclude Christa MacAuliffe. Though she didn’t actually make it — she was killed in the Challenger explosion, a paean to bad engineering and worse management– she really had no business being in space.