The idea is to boldly go where no man has gone before. But for space tourist Richard Garriott, this will take on a new dimension next month when he becomes the first son of a former United States astronaut to blast into orbit.
Garriott, a Texan computer-game designer, is taking a $30-million seat on board the Soyuz spacecraft when it travels to the International Space Station.
On Tuesday the 47-year-old multimillionaire said he had always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps but had been unable to fulfill his dream of becoming a Nasa astronaut because of his poor eyesight.
His father, Owen Garriott (77) visited the Skylab space station in 1973 and made two journeys into space. Garriott Sr plans to visit Russian mission control during his son’s 10-day mission.
His father gave him one piece of advice, Garriott said on Tuesday: enjoy the view. ”He’s very careful to say ‘make sure you take the time just to sit at the window and take a look at the view ’cause it’s mighty spectacular,’ ” he said. His dream to get to the stars had ”sunk in more deeply [through] growing up with a father who was an astronaut,” he said. He refused to accept rejection from the astronaut ”club”.
”I was very quickly determined I would not take no for an answer.”
On Tuesday the space tourist said he was undaunted by two previous jolting re-entries experienced by Russia’s Soyuz capsule and said he looked forward to conducting his own experiments in space.
In April a South Korean astronaut said she thought she would die when her Soyuz capsule re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere at the wrong angle, exposing the crew to huge gravitational forces and burning parts of the module. The capsule made a ”ballistic” descent, landing 416km off target in Kazakhstan. Several bolts were faulty, it later emerged. – guardian.co.uk