Garriott Becomes First US Citizen To Follow Parent Into Orbit

Accompanied by the popping of champagne corks, cheers -- and tears -- hundreds of eager spectators watched as three new spacefarers blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome early Sunday morning, riding inside their Soyuz TMA-13 capsule towards a Tuesday rendezvous with the International Space Station.

Commander Edward Michael "Mike" Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Valentinovich Lonchakov of the 18th International Space Station crew lifted off at 0301 EDT Sunday to begin a six-month stay in space. Accompanying the crew on their ride to orbit was spaceflight participant Richard Garriott, flying under contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency after shelling out close to $30 million to a private company for the privilege.

"I'm very happy for him," Garriott's girlfriend, Kelly Miller, tearfully told Agence-France Presse. "It's one of the things he always wanted to do... I feel like it's well worth the opportunity."

NASA reports the flight went to plan, with the capsule's solar panels and antennas deployed roughly 10 minutes after blast off.

As ANN reported, Garriott (shown below with Fincke and Lonchakov) is the son of astronaut Owen Garriott, who spent 59 days onboard America's Skylab space station in 1973. He was also a Mission Specialist onboard the STS-9 mission, the first flight of SpaceLab, onboard the shuttle Columbia in 1983.

With his flight, the younger Garriott -- who made a fortune in designing fantasy computer role-playing games, in particular the "Ultima" series -- became the first US citizen to follow a parent into orbit.

"It is a goal I have been working on for 20 to 30 years," said Garriott, 47, in the days prior to his launch. "At the age of 47, I still consider myself a fairly young man, and I believe I will continue to build new businesses which will allow me to continue my exploration of the world... I grew up in a family of astronauts and I always wanted to do what my father did."

And speaking of Richard's father, Owen Garriott witnessed his son's launch into orbit. "It's marvelous," he said afterward. "Very good."

Unlike the five 'tourinauts' that preceded him, Garriott fully intends for his trip to be a money-making enterprise. In addition to educational activities organized through partnerships with such entities as the Challenger Center, Garriott will also perform experiments dealing with such weighty matters as the effects of zero-g on the immune system, and astronauts' rest cycles.

"I am trying to demonstrate with my flight ... that private participants can do business in space that returns revenues at similar scales to the cost," Garriott said hours before his launch. "I am generating significant revenues through my activities ... that I believe will be increased in the future."

Garriott will return from orbit October 23, riding a Soyuz TMA-12 capsule with Expedition 17 crewmembers Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko. Fincke and Lonchakov will remain on the station six months, with a significant portion of their tasks related to preparing the station to handle double its current crew complement of three spacefarers.

For today, however, all the attention was on Garriott.

"I don't know why, but I cried" said South Korean spacefarer Yi So-Yeon, who went into space in April and watched Garriott's liftoff from Kazakstan Sunday. "Now Richard has become a real cosmonaut."

FMI: www.nasa.gov, www.richardinspace.com