A Russian rocket carrying U.S. billionaire Charles Simonyi and two cosmonauts blasted off Saturday en route to the international space station. The rocket roared away from the Baikonur cosmodrome into the overcast night skies over the bleak Kazakh steppes, bathing the launch pad and dozens of officials and well-wishers in a glow of flame as it rose vertically, then turned downrange. Simonyi, a 58-year-old Hungarian-born software programmer who helped develop Microsoft Word, paid more than $20 million for a 13-day trip to the orbiting station. He is the fifth paying "space tourist" to make the trip, the Associated Press reported.
