Dennis Tito became the first space tourist during a privately funded trip to the International Space Station in 2001.
Tito, an American engineer and former NASA scientist, traveled aboard the Russian Soyuz TM-32 spacecraft. He launched on 28 April 2001 with two Russian cosmonauts and spent nearly eight days aboard the International Space Station.
The mission was arranged through Space Adventures, a company that coordinated private orbital flights with Russia. Tito reportedly paid about 20 million US dollars for the journey, making the flight an early example of commercial human spaceflight.
Tito was not the first private citizen in space in every possible sense: some non-government researchers and participants had flown previously. The specific title “first space tourist” refers to a private individual who paid for an orbital sightseeing mission.