On March 31, Pathy is scheduled to blast off in an Elon Musk SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft to the space station. He will be in space for 10 days as part of the first all-private crew to visit the space station. (It was once rumoured that Tom Cruise would be part of this historic mission. The actor dropped out but is still in negotiations for a future seat.) Takeaway: Space travel is no longer just a celebrity’s game.

Michael López-Alegría, the retired NASA astronaut and commander of the upcoming SpaceX flight to the International Space Station, admits he “didn’t know anything about (Pathy)” when he first heard the Montreal businessperson was interested in
becoming part of the crew. It’s a sign, he says, that space travel has begun to democratize.

“Mark has every right to be part of this crew,” says López-Alegría. “He’s physically active, has a lot of experience in extreme environments. People like Mark, this is how you democratize the experience, how you make [space travel] more and more commonplace.” That said, you still need a few million dollars. The rumoured price of admission is $50 million US, though Pathy
denies the price tag was that high.

So, who is Mark Pathy? He is 52 years old, born and raised in Montreal, married, the father of three young children. He is CEO and chair of Mavrik, an investment firm he founded in 2016 after stepping down as co-CEO of Fednav Ltd, a shipping company founded by his great-uncle in the 1940s. He is also chair of the board of Stingray, a publicly traded media company in which Mavrik has an interest.

The Pathys (the family is of Hungarian descent) went into the shipping business by buying decommissioned ships after the Second World War. The business prospered from the start. The brothers soon became business partners with people such as former prime minister Paul Martin and moved to the Montreal enclave of Westmount.

Mark Pathy was educated at Selwyn House, a private boys school in Westmount where he went through a brief rebellion period (“five earrings and a mohawk”). He then received an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto and an MBA from INSTAD, before taking a job as an account rep at an advertising firm. But by his late 20s, Pathy had cut the hair, tossed the earrings, moved back to Montreal and begun working for the family business.

When not working, Pathy enjoys scuba diving, tennis and crazy road trips. He once travelled across the Balkans and has visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, to meet Nobel Peace Prize recipient Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist and Pentecostal pastor who receives money from the Pathy Family Foundation. (Dr. Mukwege was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, along with Nadia Murad, “for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.”) The foundation, launched in 2007, tends to focus its funding on charities aimed at generating longterm social change.

It’s an interesting background, but Pathy acknowledges his name recognition will never match that of Guy Laliberté, who in addition to co-founding Cirque du Soleil is a flamboyant poker player, star-studded Grand Prix party hoster and the first
Canadian space tourist. “I’m not a celebrity,” says Pathy, “and I like it that way. There’s going to be a time when going into space is common. I see this mission as the next step in that evolution.”

Mavrik’s offices are on the top floor of a building in old Montreal. It boasts a beautiful view of the Montreal skyline heading down to the harbourfront. 

So, how do you get a seat on a spaceship?

“You call them up,” he answers.

That’s pretty much how it’s done — in case you have a few million and were wondering.

“We don’t market these flights,” says López-Alegría. “There’s not a brochure. People contact us. We talk.”

As well as completing four missions to the International Space Station, López-Alegría is also vice president of business development with Axiom Space, the Houston-based company organizing Pathy’s trip. Axiom — founded by a former NASA
executive and a former NASA engineering services contractor — has a contract to offer private-crew trips to the current space station and has been tasked with building the next one. 

It was Axiom that Pathy phoned after a friend told him about the company’s proposed mission to the space station. “I would have been one of the first people to talk to Mark,” remembers López-Alegría. “He had a lot of safety questions. I remember that.”

Pathy also remembers those first conversations. “I was intrigued when I heard about Axiom, but I honestly didn’t think it would go anywhere. I was expecting to find out it was a long-term thing, like putting your name down for a flight to Mars.

“The more I looked into the company, the more I talked to them, the more I realized ‘these guys are really doing this. This isn’t a joke.’ The day I realized I could actually go into space — it was a shock.”