Cirque du Soleil founder steals space show, previews mission while astronauts work on lab

Cirque du Soleil founder steals space show

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A former stiltwalker and fire-eater is stealing NASA’s space show.

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy LaLiberte met with journalists Thursday and previewed his upcoming space station visit. He will rocket into orbit from Kazakhstan this fall as a paying tourist.

Laliberte says he won’t be playing with any fire in space, for obvious reasons. But he hopes to try some acrobatics in weightlessness and may teach his crewmates a card trick or two.

As Laliberte talked up creativity, art and safe water for the world’s poor, the astronauts in orbit worked to place experiments on the new front porch of Japan’s space station lab.

The combined crews of the international space station and shuttle Endeavour installed the porch last week.