MOSCOW • Russia said on Thursday that it would send an actress and a director to space to make the first feature film in the cosmos and also deliver a Japanese billionaire to the International Space Station (ISS).
Moscow is seeking to boost its embattled space programme, which has stagnated since the Soviet Union under corruption and has been overtaken by US tech billionaire Elon Musk's company SpaceX.
The Russian space agency announced the film project on Thursday after Nasa confirmed last year it was teaming up with US actor Tom Cruise to make a movie on the ISS.
The Russian "space drama", whose working title is Challenge, will feature popular Russian actress Yulia Peresild, 36, and Klim Shipenko, a 37-year-old director and actor, Roscosmos said.
They will have to undergo training, including tests on a centrifuge and flights in zero gravity, starting no later than June 1.
The film is being co-produced by the flamboyant head of Roscosmos, Mr Dmitry Rogozin, and state-run network Channel One.
The space agency also announced plans to take Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to the ISS in December, resurrecting its space tourism programme in the face of US competition.
Mr Maezawa, 45, who made his fortune in online retail, said he planned to document the mission and share it with the world on his YouTube channel with more than 700,000 subscribers.
Roscosmos said Mr Maezawa would make the flight from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with production assistant Yozo Hirano aboard a Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft that is scheduled to launch on Dec 8.
The eccentric billionaire had previously announced plans to take eight people with him on a 2023 mission around the moon aboard a Starship spacecraft built by Mr Musk's SpaceX.
Mr Maezawa and Mr Hirano will begin about three months of pre-flight training next month at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City outside of Moscow, Roscosmos added. They have already passed the required medical examinations, it said.
Roscosmos said the flight will last 12 days and the crew will be led by cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, who has been on two missions to the ISS.
A total of eight private self-funded space travellers have visited the ISS and Mr Maezawa will be the first from Japan. His flight will also be the first time that two of the three spots on a Soyuz space rocket will be occupied by tourists.
Mr Maezawa will be the first space tourist to travel to the ISS since 2009, when Canadian Guy Laliberte, co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, travelled to the station.
According to Forbes magazine, space tourists could pay anywhere between US$20 million (S$26 million) and US$35 million per person for eight to 12 days in space. The cost of Mr Maezawa's flight has not been disclosed.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
