Billionaire Microsoft pioneer prepares for blast-off

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By Antoine Lambroschini AFP - Friday, April 6

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AFP) - Billionaire software programmer Charles Simonyi is set to rocket into space Saturday in a flight to the International Space Station (ISS) that will make him the world's fifth space tourist.
The 58-year-old Simonyi, who was born in Hungary and made his fortune as a pioneer at US software giant Microsoft, will spend 10 days on the station conducting experiments, blogging, and at least part of the time, marvelling at how far he's come.
Simonyi will bring with him a paper ribbon containing a program he wrote on the 1960s Soviet-made Ural-2 computer, as he said, "to remind me where it all began."
Like any good guest, he'll also have a treat for his hosts on the ISS: a special space meal he will prepare for them on April 12, Cosmonaut's Day.
Simonyi is set to blast off at 1731 GMT Saturday from the space centre here with Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov.
Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov will see them off, as will about 50 of the programmer's friends.
The three space travellers spent a two-week quarantine in Baikonur after a month of training -- and a crash-course in Russian for Simonyi -- at Star City, a space mission preparation centre near Moscow.
The flight, which cost Simonyi around 25 million dollars (19 million euros), will be far more than a pleasure trip. Between snapping shots of Earth, he will be conducting medical experiments for the European Space Agency and testing high-definition cameras for the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.
He plans to spend his free time detailing his experiences in a blog at www.charlesinspace.com. The site already contains daily accounts of his training sessions, as well as information and games "for future generations of space explorers."
At a walk around the Baikonur space centre this week, Simonyi said he had been thrilled to find a piece of his programming past there.
"At the Baikonur museum they have a Ural-1, which is almost like a Ural-2.... I kind of thought that the circle is closed, that we're back to the future, and I think it's great."
His passion for the stars seized him only recently as he watched rocket launches at the US space centre in Cape Canaveral.
As a teenage computer programmer, Simonyi's greatest ambition had been "to get out of Hungary and emigrate to the West."
He succeeded in 1968, at the age of 20, when he enrolled in the prestigious University of California-Berkeley and studied engineering and mathematics.
His path to fortune was laid in 1981, when he was hired by Microsoft -- then a scrappy young company -- and helped design the benchmark Word and Excel programmes.
He later received US citizenship, and in 2002 quit Microsoft to found his own firm, Intentional Software.
Already adept at piloting airplanes and helicopters, Simonyi said he was not sure what would strike him more -- the sight of the blue planet from space or the feeling of weightlessness.
"I think that the best is to discover it on the spot," he said.
He is scheduled to return to Earth on April 20 together with the current ISS team -- Russia's Mikhail Tyurin and American Miguel Lopez-Alegria -- while his companions stay on for a 190-day shift in orbit.
Simonyi will be the fifth tourist to travel to the ISS, following the United States' Dennis Tito (2001) and Greg Olsen (2005), South Africa's Mark Shuttleworth (2002) and an American of Iranian origin, Anousheh Ansari (2006).
Once back on Earth, he will focus on a more worldly task: developing his new company.
"I've got this company, and my dream is to make it very successful," he said.

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http://space.com/missionlaunches/070407_exp15_postlaunch.html

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AFP - Saturday, April 21
MOSCOW (AFP) - Billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi landed back on Earth Saturday, describing his 25-million-dollar trip to the International Space Station (ISS) as "terrific."
The Soyuz capsule carrying Simonyi, 58, who spent nearly two weeks aboard the ISS, and two crew members from the space station, touched down as planned in the steppes of Kazakhstan, a spokesman for Russia's space centre said.
"According to reports from the support teams ... all the cosmonauts are well," the spokesman told AFP by telephone.
Television pictures showed the US-Hungarian Simonyi looking relaxed as he lay on the grass of the steppe, his space helmet off, enjoying the sunshine.
"It was terrific," he told the Vesti 24 channel in English. "It's good to be back on Earth."
Simonyi and two ISS crew members, Mikhail Tyurin of Russia and American Miguel Lopez-Alegria, had left the space station some three hours earlier for the descent.
He had arrived at the ISS on April 9, with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Fyodor Yurchikhin who were relieving Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria for a 190-day shift in orbit.
Simonyi, who left his native Hungary at the age of 17, made his fortune at Microsoft, where he developed the Excel and Word programs.
His time on the ISS was scheduled to include conducting experiments, recording his impressions, and preparing a gourmet dinner for his hosts -- he is the partner of US homemaking queen Martha Stewart.
Simonyi was the fifth tourist to travel to the ISS, following Dennis Tito (2001) and Greg Olsen (2005) of the United States, South Africa's Mark Shuttleworth (2002) and an American of Iranian origin, Anousheh Ansari (2006).
Space Adventures, the company that organises the trips, plans to expand its offerings next year to include a 100-million-dollar orbit of the moon and a 100,000-dollar budget option: five minutes of sub-orbital space flight.
Eric Andersen, boss of Space Adventures, said when Simonyi took off that the company had another client for a flight this year who would go public within a few months.

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