Mon, Oct 13, 2008 | 07:20 BST

Garriott goes into space

As reported by the BBC, Richard Garriott blasted off in the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft in Kazakhstan yesterday and is now in space.

He’ll be on the International Space Station for the next ten days.

Garriott paid £15 million for the trip, and is only the sixth civilian to ever go into orbit.

More through the link. Richard: we salute you.

11 comments

that_happy_cat
13/10/08, 8:56 am

I heard that one of his rivals for the place on that ship tried to kill him by placing hundreds of barrels of gunpowder in his room then setting off an explosion.

Obviously that didn’t work

pjmaybe
13/10/08, 9:26 am

Way to cover up the ad with your butt, Richie boy!

scratchy69
13/10/08, 9:43 am

He’s also the first ever second-generation astronaut, incidentaly.

pjmaybe
13/10/08, 9:44 am

15 mill is a hell of a chunk of dough though. Mind you, if I had that much disposable cash I’d probably do the same.

Shatner
13/10/08, 9:51 am

Love that expression on his face. Pure caption-competition stuff.

“Hey guys, what does this big red button do? Can I push it? Can I can I can I?”

pleasant_cabbage
13/10/08, 9:58 am

I like the expression on the dood behind him.

Looks like a bored binman taking the bosses son for a spin on a collection route.

that_happy_cat
13/10/08, 11:32 am

He isn’t an astronaut. When he was interview by Wired magazine he was upset about the tight restrictions that NASA place on the term astronaut. They are very careful about who can actually use that.

It’s a great article to read and it’s important to realise that this isn’t just a “pay your money and go” deal…

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-09/ff_starcity

Credit to the man!

pjmaybe
13/10/08, 12:38 pm

LOL at P_C’s description of the bloke behind.

There’s a man who’s probably cleaned up one too many zero-G puke.

Cort
13/10/08, 12:54 pm

I loved him in There’s Something About Mary.

#10

Michael O'Connor
13/10/08, 4:56 pm

Kudos to Garriot for realising his dreams.

#11