Sharjah24 – AFP: Dennis Tito, an American entrepreneur who in 2001 became the first person to pay for their own space voyage, said Wednesday he plans to fly with his wife Akiko on a future SpaceX mission around the Moon.

The voyage will take place after Elon Musk's company has finished developing its prototype Starship rocket and has flown a first commercial flight that will include Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa.

The weeklong mission would see Starship fly within 125 miles of the lunar surface before returning home.

Tito did not disclose how much he and Akiko had paid for their tickets, but said ten more seats remain open for others to sign up.

Maezawa, on the other hand, has chartered all the seats on his mission called "dearMoon," set to fly no sooner than 2023 but likely much later.

In 2001, Tito paid $20 million to fly on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station, heralding the era of space tourism.

An aeronautics and astronautics engineer by training, Tito worked for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the 1960s, before founding the investment management firm Wilshire Associates in 1972.