|
US billionaire docks in space
10/04/2007 07:05 - (SA)
Korolyov, Russia - A Russian-built Soyuz capsule docked at the international space station late on Monday, two days after blasting off from the Baikonur cosmodrome with US billionaire Charles Simonyi and two Russian cosmonauts aboard.
Russian and American officials and visitors - including American lifestyle tycoon Martha Stewart - applauded at Russian Mission Control, on Moscow's outskirts, as onboard TV cameras showed the Soyuz nearing the station and then jerking to a stop at 19:10GMT. Stewart is a friend of Simonyi's.
Once the capsule is secured to the station, it will take roughly two hours before the Soyuz crew is able to open the air locks and greet face-to-face the station's current crew - Russian Mikhail Tyurin and American astronauts Miguel Lopez-Alegria and Sunita Williams.
Simonyi, an American software programmer who helped write Microsoft Word, shelled out $25m to make the journey to the station and become the world's fifth paying private space traveler.
He returns to Earth on April 20, along with Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria, who have been on the station since September. Williams will remain on board with cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov of Russia.
The arrival of a new crew is always a happy event, and in this case the pleasure may be whetted by the resident crew knowing that Simonyi is bringing them a gourmet dinner.
The menu, including quail marinated in wine, was selected by Stewart, who was on hand both for the Baikonur blastoff and to watch the docking on a video linkup at Russian Mission Control in Korolyov, on Moscow's outskirts.
The dinner is to be eaten on Thursday, which Russia marks as Cosmonauts' Day, the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin making the first manned space flight in 1961.
- AP
|
News
