United States space tourist set for blast-off

By Staff
|
Google Oneindia News

Baikonur (Kazakhstan), Apr 7: US software mogul Charles Simonyi is due to blast off aboard a Russian spaceship today watched by his friend, lifestyle guru Martha Stewart.

Simonyi, 58, a billionaire founding father of Microsoft, will depart for the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Soyuz TMA-10 spaceship with Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov at 2331 hours (local time).

Stewart has flown to the Soviet-era Baikonur Cosmodrome to watch Simonyi take off from the launch pad used by Yuri Gagarin in 1961 when he became the first man to travel into space.

Simonyi, the world's fifth space tourist, paid 25 million dollars for the 12-day trip.

Stewart spent the day touring Baikonour, a scattering of Soviet-era buildings in the middle of the barren Kazakh steppe, while she waited for the night launch.

She took a ride on a camel and examined a yurt, a Kazakh felt hut. ''Baikonur is beautiful,'' she said.

Simonyi is carrying a special dinner packed in an aluminium container which he will share with ISS colleagues on Russia's Cosmonauts Day on April 12.

Stewart chose the menu which features quail roasted in wine, duck breast with capers and rice pudding, among other courses.

The two Americans have been reported to be romantically linked.

Yurchikhin, speaking alongside Simonyi before the launch, said with a smile about the dinner: ''I would like to add the crew regards the wine sauce strictly just as sauce.'' Cosmonauts are not allowed alcohol before and during their flight.

In quarantine ahead of the flight, Simonyi looked confident as he spoke to reporters yesterday.

''We don't know what we will find but we have to go and find it,'' said Simonyi, who will conduct scientific experiments on the ISS.

Later in a private farewell before the launch, Stewart and Simonyi, separated by the glass quarantine panel, exchanged personal words and waved goodbye to one another.

Simonyi was born in Hungary and moved to the United States where he joined a start-up company called Microsoft and made a fortune developing some of its most profitable applications like Word.

Simonyi, who now runs his own company, and the Russian cosmonauts are due to dock with the ISS on Monday.

He spent several months training at a Soviet-era space centre near Moscow. He said he had asked other space tourists for tips.

''They gave me a lot of advice, not to move my head, not to drink too much before the launch,'' Simonyi said.

REUTERS

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