Wearing a red clown nose, the Canadian founder of Cirque du Soleil hosted an out-of-this-world performance event on Friday, saying he wanted to use his trip as a space tourist to highlight the scarcity of water on Earth.
Guy Laliberte's two-hour performance event, called "Moving Stars and Earth for Water," linked the International Space Station with singers, dancers and celebrity campaigners in 14 world cities, in what organizers called the first event of its kind to be hosted from space.
One of the most anticipated segments of the evening was a chat between Laliberte and Bono, who was performing with U2 at a concert in Tampa, Fla.
"You are the first clown in space, and we think it's a great idea for you to give us your perspective on our little planet while you're not on our little planet and instead looking down on it," Bono said. "How do we look from there, how does our little planet look, Guy?"
"I see stars, I see darkness and emptiness," Laliberte said. "But planet Earth looks so great, and also so fragile."
Laliberte has spent the past week on the space station after paying $35 million to fly on a Russian spacecraft, becoming the world's seventh paying space passenger.
"I decided to use this privilege to raise awareness of water issues," he said. "I believe that with true art and emotion we can convey a message."
Laliberte, 50, whose money-spinning circus shows around the world have made him a billionaire, launched his Montreal-based One Drop Foundation in 2007 to increase access to clean water worldwide. Millions of people in developing countries do not have access to clean water, and water-borne illnesses are a persistent problem in many impoverished regions.
Friday's event combined live and taped segments. Former Vice President Al Gore, who has more recently made a name for himself as a Nobel-winning environmental campaigner, gave a video presentation on climate change. Brazilian singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil sang in Rio de Janeiro. Cirque du Soleil acrobats gave water-themed performances from Montreal and Las Vegas, and dancers from the Bolshoi Ballet performed from Moscow.
Production costs for the multilingual show were estimated at between $6 million and $10 million, on top of Laliberte's passenger fare. The presentation was broadcast on satellite TV networks and streamed on the Internet via the One Drop Foundation's Web site.
During the show, online viewers from as far away as Argentina, Australia and India were asked to sign "make a difference" pledges to cut back on bottled water, install water-saving devices in toilets and make other environmental savings.
Organizers said the event was aimed more at raising awareness than raising funds.
"I thank you for joining the ripple effect," Laliberte said, ending what he called his "poetic social mission" with a slow-motion shot of droplets of drinking water in the microgravity environment of the space station.
The presentation is scheduled for rebroadcast several times this weekend on . This report includes information from Reuters and The Associated Press.