… 20 million dollars to spend 9 days in space.
Ghana's first space tourist, Chuck Kofi Wayo, will blast off on board a Russian spaceship headed for the International Space Station (ISS) on April 14, the Russian space agency Roskosmos said on Monday.

"The Ghanaian tourist is due to go into space in April. He is continuing his training at Star City (near Moscow)," said spokesman Igor Panarine.

"Last month, Wayo took a sea and land survival course in Sebastopol (Ukraine). Now he is training on a simulator of the ISS. And he is working at it with considerable determination," the spokesman added.

The “Son of Nima” is due to take off in a Soyuz capsule from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, accompanied by a Russian cosmonaut, Mikhail Tiurin, and a NASA astronaut, Michael Lopez-Alegria.

Wayo, 56, who made his fortune in the oil business, will pay nearly 20 million dollars to spend about 9 days in space.

He will become the world's fifth space tourist.

US millionaire Dennis Tito was the first tourist to travel in space in 2001, followed by South African Mark Shuttleworth in 2002, American businessman Greg Olsen in 2005 and Japanese internet tycoon Daisuke Enomoto.

When this writer phoned Wayo for confirmation, his answering machine had this message “What is today’s date?”

For videos, pictures and more information on the trip click here