According to the CBC, Lamliberte, a billionaire from Quebec, hired a Montreal media firm to determine the value of his trip in terms of media coverage, and the firm found that nearly 41,000 reports about Laliberte’s appeared in newspapers and television news outlets around the world. By comparison, there were only 1,812 stories about Canada’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan.

The firm determined that it would have cost Laliberte more than a half a billion dollars to buy the kind of advertising that compared to the amount of media coverage he received around the world, giving him a 1,500 percent return on investment.

Laliberte, an environmental advocate, spent time on a shuttle and at the International Space Station holding events that were designed to raise awareness about the planet’s dwindling water supply.