Canadian circus billionaire Guy Laliberte blasted off in a Russian Soyuz spaceship from Kazakhstan today to become the world's seventh space tourist.

The 50-year-old former fire-breather and founder of the Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil paid more than $35 million for the privilege of flying to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur cosmodrome on the Kazakh steppe.

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