is a Japanese businessman and former

livedoor was a Japanese company that functioned as an Internet service provider and operator of a web portal and blog platform before being brought down by a scandal in 2006. The company was founded and led in its first 10 years by Takafumi Horie, known ...

executive who hoped to become the fourth

space tourist Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. Tourists are motivated by the possibility of viewing Earth from space, ...

. He had trained at Star City, Moscow in Russia to fly with two members of Expedition 14 on board

Soyuz TMA-9 Soyuz TMA-9 was a Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS) launched by a Soyuz FG launch vehicle. It was a human spaceflight mission transporting personnel to and from the ISS. It launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 18 Septembe ...

, which was launched on September 18, 2006. However, on August 21, 2006, a Russian Federal Space Agency spokesman announced that Enomoto was "deemed not ready to fly for exclusively medical reasons", although he hinted that Enomoto might recover and join a later mission. His replacement on this particular flight was

Iranian-American Iranian-Americans, also known as Persian-Americans, are United States citizens or nationals who are of Iranian ancestry, or who hold Iranian citizenship. Most Iranian-Americans arrived in the United States after 1979, as a result of the Irani ...

businesswoman Anousheh Ansari. Enomoto lodged a

lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...

against Virginia-based

Space Adventures Space Adventures, Inc. is an American space tourism company founded in 1998 by Eric C. Anderson. Its offerings include zero-gravity atmospheric flights, orbital spaceflights (with the option to participate in a spacewalk), and other spacefl ...

in which he hoped to reclaim the $21 million he paid the company over a two-year span. During the lawsuit, it was revealed that the "medical reason" was chronic

kidney stones Kidney stone disease (known as nephrolithiasis, renal calculus disease, or urolithiasis) is a crystallopathy and occurs when there are too many minerals in the urine and not enough liquid or hydration. This imbalance causes tiny pieces of cr ...

. Space Adventures claims it advised Enomoto to treat the kidney stones aggressively and when he did not, they had to disqualify him from spaceflight. Enomoto claims that he was misled about the kidney stones issue, and that the real reason for his disqualification was his refusal to provide additional funds to Space Adventures. Enomoto would have been the first ''self-funded''

from Japan and Asia (journalist

Toyohiro Akiyama is a retired Japanese TV journalist and professor at Kyoto University of Art and Design. In December 1990, he spent seven days aboard the Mir space station. He became the first person of Japanese people, Japanese nationality to fly in space, ...

flew on Soyuz TM-11 in 1990, and could be regarded as the first space business traveller). Enomoto's flight would have taken him to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

(ISS) after lifting off from the

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport operated by Russia within Kazakhstan. Located in the Kazakh city of Baikonur, it is the largest operational space launch facility in terms of area. All Russian Human spaceflight, crewed spaceflights are l ...

in Kazakhstan, the world's oldest

spaceport A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft, by analogy to a seaport for ships or an airport for aircraft. The word ''spaceport''—and even more so ''cosmodrome''—has traditionally referred to sites capable of ...

. Enomoto made international news when it was revealed that he intended to go into space wearing a

costume Costume is the distinctive style of dress and/or makeup of an individual or group that reflects class, gender, occupation, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch—in short, culture. The term also was traditionally used to describe typica ...

akin to that of

Char Aznable , born and also known as , is a fictional character from the ''Gundam'' franchise. He is originally one of the main antagonists in ''Mobile Suit Gundam'' working for the Principality of Zeon, named after his late father Zeon Zum Deikun, with ...

, a character from the

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

series ''

Mobile Suit Gundam , also retrospectively known as ''First Gundam'', ''Gundam 0079'' or simply ''Gundam '79'', is a Japanese anime television series produced by Nippon Sunrise. Created and directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, it premiered in Japan on Na ...

''. His planned experiment was to put together one or more

Gundam model Gundam Plastic models, Gundam Plamo, or are model kits depicting the mecha machinery and characters of the fictional ''Gundam'' multiverse by Bandai Spirits. These kits became popular among mecha anime fans and model enthusiasts in Japan and ...

s in

zero gravity Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight, i.e., zero apparent weight. It is also termed zero g-force, or zero-g (named after the g-force) or, incorrectly, zero gravity. Weight is a measurement of the fo ...

References

External links

Spacefacts biography of Daisuke Enomoto

on hi
own web site

Medical defeats 4th space tourist

The Space Tourist Who Wasn't
Japanese businesspeople 1971 births Living people People from Matsudo {{astronaut-stub