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While the global view must be amazing for astronauts crammed aboard the orbiting International Space Station (ISS), if you had to pay an exorbitant price for the experience, would you want to do it more than once?
...also starring Martin Landau as Commander John Koenig. Image: Marcin Wichary/Flickr.
Clearly such internal discussion wasn’t an issue for U.S. billionaire Charles Simonyi who had his heart and chequebook set on making the return trip and this week entered the space tourism history books as a result.
More pointedly, with money burning as fast as the blazing tail of flame spewing from the Russian rocket blasting him spaceward on Thursday morning, affluent former Microsoft software developer Simonyi has embarked on yet another thrilling trip to the ISS.
Launched successfully from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:49 GMT, 60-year-old Simonyi and the crew of the Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft are expected to complete docking procedures with the waiting space station on Saturday afternoon.
“We are feeling well,” commented Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka on behalf of Simonyi and U.S. astronaut Michael Barratt via a live feed from the rocket. “Everything is going well.”
In terms of handing over vast amounts of cash to Space Adventures, thereby supporting the burgeoning and distinctly elitist business of space tourism, Simonyi’s combined trips to the International Space Station are believed to have cost around $60 million USD.
Despite becoming the first space tourist to blast clear of the planet on two separate occasions, the billionaire had been considering the possibility of pushing the record further with a third trip. However, his recent marriage and a need to spend more time with his family mean two launches will be his self-imposed limit.
Russian mission control have confirmed that the Soyuz spacecraft is now successfully in orbit ahead of its weekend rendezvous with the ISS.
Simonyi is expected to return to Earth with outgoing mission commander Michael Fincke and Russian flight engineer Yuri Lonchakov on April 07.
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