L.A. Gives Tito Warm Welcome Home: Mayor Proclaims “Dennis Tito Day”

(Editor’s note: this story is based upon notes by an anonymous SpaceRef contributor. For other news check SpaceRef’s special Focus On Dennis Tito’s Space Vacation)

Yesterday at around 5:00 PM PDT, “citizen explorer” Dennis Tito
arrived at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and was greeted by over 100 people – and a large contingent of Los Angeles media.

Among the cheering crowd was the Mayor of Los Angeles Richard Riordian, City Councilman Nate Holden, as well as several local officials. A large contingent of Wilshire Associates employees and local citizens (clearly thrilled about his trip into space) were also present.

Mayor Riordian proclaimed May 9, 2001 as “Astronaut Dennis Tito Day” In Los
Angeles and congratulated Dennis for being the first member of the board of
the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to go into space.

Many of the space advocates at the event had signs like “congratulations for
a dream come true!” and others that simply expressed general messages of welcome. The crowd was enthusiastic and Mr. Tito beamed as he stood at the platform with his two sons, one an environmentalist and the other an investment partner at Wilshire Associates. Tito was clearly thrilled at the reception by the local audience.

Mr. Tito gave a short speech of thanks and answered questions from the local
media. Among similar questions regarding what was space like, did the
astronauts like him, and what did he do, etc.

A very interesting question for space advocates was then asked. Mr. Tito was asked what he was going to do with the rest of his life in the
context of his trip into space. His response was that he wanted to work to
bring Wall Street and NASA together to bring about a new era so that we
could finally build reusable launch systems and bring down the cost of
access to space so that more regular folks would have a chance to go to
space. He waxed eloquent that we must have “creative” people such as
writers, poets, and teachers who travel to space who can articulate the
experience to everyone and help truly open up space to the people.

Mr. Tito looked fit on his return but genuinely shocked at the attention.
As he left the press room at LAX he shook hands with the crowd and told
everyone thanks for coming.