Japanese billionaire who spent $80 million flying to space said world leaders should do the same because it gives you a new perspective on Earth

• Yusaku Maezawa spent some $80 million on a 12-day trip to the International Space Station.
• Despite criticism, he has enthusiastically recommended the experience since returning.

A Japanese billionaire who recently spent around $80 million on a pleasure trip to the International Space Station (ISS) said that he would urge others to do the same, especially people in charge of things on Earth.

Yusaku Maezawa, 46, returned on Monday from a 12 day-long commercial trip to the ISS.

"I would like as many people as possible — and as many people with power and influence — to visit space," Maezawa said at a press conference on Wednesday, per AFP.

"They will see Earth differently and treat it completely differently," he added. Maezawa did not seem fazed by the costs that would involve.

He recently defended the cost of his trip to space in an interview with the Associated Press on December 13.

While the exact price tag of the excursion is unknown, Maezawa had said that reports that he had spent $80 million on his trip were "pretty much" accurate, Insider previously reported.

Those who criticized billionaires for going into space "are perhaps those who have never been to space," he had said.

Maezawa's net worth stands at $1.9 billion, per Forbes. His space tourism doesn't end with the ISS, as he is chartering Elon Musk's first civilian SpaceX flight around the Moon, slated for 2023.

Maezawa, alongside his assistant Yozo Hirano and cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, kept busy during his 12-day long trip to the ISS, which he documented on social media.

One of his first acts there was to hand-deliver the first-ever Uber Eats delivery to space, an order of canned beef and boiled mackerel.

He also kept a log of his life on the space station, publishing videos explaining how to sleep, wash your hair, play drums, and arm-wrestle in space.

The fashion tycoon is also known for planning to give away $9 million to followers who retweeted one of his tweets as part of a social experiment to see if money would increase people's happiness.

He also had planned a matchmaking reality TV show to help him find a potential girlfriend, whom he would have taken on his upcoming trip around the moon, Insider previously reported.

That search for a partner was ultimately called off. A competition to be one of the eight crew members on Maezawa's SpaceX flight to the Moon, now called "dearMoon," is now its final stages.

Maezawa's trip caps off a landmark year for space tourism. Ultra-rich Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos flew to the edge of space this year and Musk's SpaceX organized the first space tourists to orbit the Earth.