Cirque du Soleil founder and soon to be space tourist Guy Laliberte will launch an art project promoting access to potable water for all when he blasts off for the International Space Station, he said Wednesday.
The multimedia event is scheduled to start at 1200 GMT on October 9 and will touch 14 cities on five continents, he told a video press conference from Star City, Russia where he has been training for his 12-day stay aboard the orbiting laboratory.
"It will start with the Moon, the Sun and a drop of water," he said, noting the life sustaining powers of water and threats to humanity such as water pollution and melting polar ice.
Water woes are "the greatest challenge currently facing humanity," he said, adding that former US vice president Al Gore, singers Peter Gabriel and Shakira, Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki and astronaut Julie Payette, among others, have agreed to participate in the event from the ground.
The Canadian billionaire is to become the first artist in space and the seventh space tourist to rocket into orbit when he joins the crew of a Soyuz space ship for a September 30 launch to the International Space Station.
A former tightrope walker and fire-eater now dubbed the "first clown in space," he said he also hopes to turn cosmonauts into clowns by urging his Soyuz crew to don red clown noses during the trip.
Born in Quebec, Laliberte in 1984 turned a small acrobatic troupe into a global entertainment empire that now employs 4,000 people and generates 800 million dollars in ticket and merchandise sales annually.
He is now estimated to be worth 2.5 billion dollars, and is ranked 261st richest man in the world by Forbes magazine.
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