US millionaire video game guru Richard Garriott followed in his astronaut father’s footsteps yesterday, blasting off aboard a Russian rocket to become the world’s sixth space tourist.
Sealed inside the Soyuz TMA-13 capsule together with a Russian cosmonaut and US astronaut, Garriott was catapulted toward the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur base in the dusty steppes of Kazakhstan at 7:01am.
Several hundred observers were present at the launch sight and they applauded as the rocket roared off the launch pad and rose into the blue skies overhead.
PHOTO: AFP
Russian-born Google co-founder Sergei Brin, who has put down a US$5 million deposit on a seat on a private space flight, was on hand for a send-off at the Baikonur cosmodrome attended by the trio’s family and friends.
Within 10 minutes of the launch, controllers confirmed the spacecraft had entered its planned orbit. Champagne corks popped as family and friends of the crew celebrated the apparently successful start of the mission.
“I’m very happy for him,” said Garriott’s girlfriend, Kelly Miller, tears welling up in her eyes. “It’s one of the things he always wanted to do ... I feel like it’s well worth the opportunity.”
The flight, which cost Garriott US$30 million, was programmed to settle into orbit about nine minutes after take-off and reach the ISS at 8:33am tomorrow.
Garriott, now the first US citizen to follow a parent into space, hopes to be able to recoup the money he paid for the experience.
Unlike the five space tourists who came before him, Garriott views space as a family business.
His father is former US astronaut Owen Garriott, who in 1973 spent two months aboard Skylab, the first orbiting space station.
“I grew up in a family of astronauts and I always wanted to do what my father did,” he said.
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