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'Soft landing' for space tourist
21/04/2007 17:02 - (SA)
Korolyov, Russia - A Russian cosmonaut and an American astronaut returned to Earth on Saturday along with a US billionaire whose paid voyage to the international space station ended with a landing on the Kazakh steppe.
The capsule carrying Mikhail Tyurin, Michael Lopez-Alegria and space tourist Charles Simonyi, a Hungarian-born software engineer, touched down after a more than three-hour return trip from the orbital station, a spokesperson said in an announcement at Mission Control outside Moscow.
He said it had been a "soft landing".
Simonyi looked ecstatic after rescuers helped him out of the capsule, which lay askew on the bleak grassland, and into a chair lined with fur for warmth. He smiled and grinned, shook a hand and spoke with the bustling support crew.
He then crunched enthusiastically into a green apple - a tradition after Russian space landings.
Tyurin looked pale and tired, but soon managed a smile in a video link with Mission Control.
Lopez-Alegria, the last out of the capsule, sighed with relief, smiled and talked to the support crew as doctors measured the men's vital signs. He took what appeared to be a drink of water.
Relief
The capsule raced down to Earth after separating from the two other sections of the Soyuz TMA-9 craft following its departure from the station, where one of the final tasks the travellers performed was to move containers with biological experiments from refrigerators on the station into the Soyuz.
"I crossed my fingers all the way, and I am very happy now," Simonyi's brother, Tamas, said at Mission Control. "Yes, I was nervous, but now it's a big relief to know that he's safe and sound and that the crew is safe and sound."
Simonyi arrived at the station on April 9 - also courtesy of a Soyuz, which flew into space atop a Russian rocket launched from the Russian-leased launch facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan - along with cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov, who remained on the station.
Simonyi, 58, amassed the fortune that made his $25m voyage possible through his work with computer software, including helping to develop Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.
Simonyi followed in the footsteps of Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Gregory Olsen and Anousheh Ansari - all "space flight participants" who have travelled to the international space station aboard Russian rockets in trips brokered by Space Adventures.
- AP
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