Daisuke Enomoto

Who is Daisuke Enomoto?

Daisuke Enomoto is a Japanese businessman and former livedoor executive who hoped to become the fourth space tourist. He had trained at Star City, Moscow in Russia to fly with two members of Expedition 14 on board Soyuz TMA-9, 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 businesswoman Anousheh Ansari. Enomoto was involved in a lawsuit against Virginia-based Space Adventures 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. Space Adventures claims it advised Enomoto to treat the kidney stones aggressively and when he didn't, they had to disqualify him from spaceflight. Enomoto claims the real reason for his disqualification was his refusal to provide additional funds to Space Adventures.

Enomoto would have been the first self-funded space tourist from Japan and Asia. Enomoto's flight would have taken him to the International Space Station after lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the world's oldest spaceport.