Richard Garriott Becomes Latest Space Tourist
October 12, 2008 by
Richard Garriott has become the latest space tourist to travel to the high frontier. Along with another American, Mike Fincke and a Russian, Yuri Lonchakov, Richard Garriott blasted off on board a Soyuz space craft for a stay on the International Space Station.
Richard Garriott made a considerable fortune designing computer fantasy games, starting right out of high school. This has allowed him to pay the thirty million dollars charged by Space Adventures Ltd, an American based company that, in cooperation with
the Russian Space Agency, organizes tours of the International Space Station for paying customers.
Richard Garriott is also the son of Owen Garriott, himself a former NASA astronaut who served on a tour of the Skylab space station in the early 1970s. Owen and Richard Garriott therefore constitute the first father and son astronauts. They also represent two very different ways of traveling in space. Owen Garriott was part of the NASA space program, trained by and working for a government. Richard Garriott is part of the new, still unfolding era of commercial space flight, where people fly into space on their own, financed with private money.
Previous private space travels include California businessman Dennis Tito, billionaire American software engineer Charles Simonyi, and Iranian born Texas entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari. Richard Garriott intends to conduct a number of scientific experiments during his stay on the International Space Station.
Space tourism is an exciting development that has the potential to open up commercial space travel. A number of companies, including Virgin Galactic, are working on space craft capable of sub orbital jaunts for paying customers. SpaceX, which recently successfully launched its Falcon 1 rocket, is working on a space craft in cooperation with NASA that would take paying customers, including NASA astronauts, to the International Station. Bigelow Aerospace is developing a private space station, to be built of inflatable modules, where paying customers may stay in low Earth orbit.
Richard Garriott made a considerable fortune designing computer fantasy games, starting right out of high school. This has allowed him to pay the thirty million dollars charged by Space Adventures Ltd, an American based company that, in cooperation with
Richard Garriott Becomes Latest Space Tourist
Richard Garriott is also the son of Owen Garriott, himself a former NASA astronaut who served on a tour of the Skylab space station in the early 1970s. Owen and Richard Garriott therefore constitute the first father and son astronauts. They also represent two very different ways of traveling in space. Owen Garriott was part of the NASA space program, trained by and working for a government. Richard Garriott is part of the new, still unfolding era of commercial space flight, where people fly into space on their own, financed with private money.
Previous private space travels include California businessman Dennis Tito, billionaire American software engineer Charles Simonyi, and Iranian born Texas entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari. Richard Garriott intends to conduct a number of scientific experiments during his stay on the International Space Station.
Space tourism is an exciting development that has the potential to open up commercial space travel. A number of companies, including Virgin Galactic, are working on space craft capable of sub orbital jaunts for paying customers. SpaceX, which recently successfully launched its Falcon 1 rocket, is working on a space craft in cooperation with NASA that would take paying customers, including NASA astronauts, to the International Station. Bigelow Aerospace is developing a private space station, to be built of inflatable modules, where paying customers may stay in low Earth orbit.
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The next US President will enter office in January, 2009 with a space program that is in transition. He or she will have the opportunity to shape what could be the Third Age of Space.
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