US software pioneer Charles Simonyi (60) yesterday became the first person to travel twice to space as a tourist, as he blasted off to the International Space Station.
US software pioneer Charles Simonyi (60) yesterday became the first person to travel twice to space as a tourist, as he blasted off to the International Space Station.
Simonyi, along with an American and a Russian astronaut, was launched aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome the same launchpad that was used in the first ever human space flight, that of Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin in 1961.
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spacing out: The spacecraft carrying Charles Simonyi blasts off from Kazakhstan yesterday. |
"I feel great and I am looking at the Earth," he told mission control after lift-off.
Simonyi, one of the brains behind Bill Gates' Microsoft, paid $35 million (Rs ) for the voyage, despite no longer being counted a billionaire in a ranking by the US magazine Forbes.
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He previously travelled to the space station in April 2007, becoming one of a select group of wealthy civilians to have pioneered space tourism.
Simonyi is to spend 10 days aboard the station before returning to Earth with two current crew members, while the astronauts who accompanied him will stay back for six months.
It takes two days on the journey to the space station due to the need for efficient use of fuel.
Space Adventures, the company that arranged Simonyi's flight, said it was planning to carry out the first space launch exclusively for paying tourists in 2011.
