WASHINGTON -- The first space tourist to bankroll his own flight, millionaire Dennis Tito, has called for use of American and Russian spacecraft to cultivate passenger space travel and "open up" the International Space Station to more stopover visits.

Speaking today at a U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Tito recalled his purported $20 million, 8-day stint in space.

Blasting off to space on April 28 thanks to a Russian Soyuz booster, Tito boarded the International Space Station, taking up residence in the still under construction outpost.

Circling Earth for 128 orbits in 8 days, the pricey flight figures to $150,000 an orbit. Divided by 90 minutes per orbit, Tito shelled out roughly $1,700 dollars per minute for his personal space trek.

Tito said that consideration should be given to reinstating the NASA civilian in space program, opening up shuttle seats to the public. Doing so would allow people from all walks of life -- from teachers, journalists, and novelists to opera composers -- to orbit the planet. By bringing their experiences back to Earth, the pleasures of flying in space can become part of our culture, he said.

Additionally, Tito said that the United States "should encourage Russia to sell additional seats on the Soyuz," making those seats available to people that can afford them, he said.

"I would suggest that we work with the Russians and allow them to send one paying passenger on each available Soyuz taxi mission. While I would agree that passenger criteria need to be put in place, we also need to be careful not to set the bar as high as the standard would be for a Shuttle mission commander, thus eliminating most candidates," Tito said in his written testimony.

"I think one of the things that will keep people interested in space is seeing ordinary people go up from different walks of life. People that they can identify with and people who can articulate the experience," Tito said. 

Apollo 11 moon walker, Buzz Aldrin, said that large-scale space tourism needs to be seen as a catalyst to create a much grander space infrastructure. Not only would tens of millions of U.S. citizens be able to travel in space, but the hardware necessary for returning to the moon and exploring Mars can also be realized, he said.

"Ticket-buying passengers can be the solution to the problem of high space costs that plague government and private space efforts alike," Aldrin testified.

Pursuing a two-stage to orbit tourism system, Aldrin said, has multiple benefits. Among them, the U.S. will recapture the lions share of the global satellite market; expeditions to the Moon and Mars become feasible; and space hotels can be built providing greater volume at far lower cost than the International Space Station, he said.

"NASA's refusal to actively encourage passengers on the shuttle is a major hurdle," Aldrin told the subcommittee.

Aldrin struck out at NASA saying the civilian space agency has been hostile to space tourism. Furthermore, the two major space transportation companies -- Boeing and Lockheed Martin -- have no incentives to move on to reusable systems that could serve a waiting-in-the-wings tourism market, he said.