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Space tourist to follow in astronaut father's footsteps
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 30 - 07 - 2008


When video game mogul Richard Garriott travels
to space as a tourist aboard an October Soyuz mission, he will be
following in the footsteps of his astronaut father, becoming the
first "second-generation" US space traveller, according to dpa.
Garriott is to join US and Russian International Space Station
Expedition 18 crew members on an October 12 Soyuz flight under a
commercial agreement with the Russian space agency.
His father, Owen Garriott, set a then-record for time in space in
1973 with 60 days aboard Skylab, and the younger Garriott had also
dreamed of becoming an astronaut but was held back by poor vision.
Instead he made a fortune in video gaming, and will spend millions
of dollars - "a significant portion" of his wealth, he says - making
the trip to space as a civilian to fulfil his life- long dream.
But his father will not be far from his mind, and will travel to
the Russian mission control to interact with his son, Richard
Garriott told reporters at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston on
Wednesday.
"My father was not shocked at all to see me pursuing this," he
said.
Owen Garriott also conducted the first ham radio communication
from space to Earth nearly 25 years ago, contacting his son, and
Richard Garriott will repeat the feat, reaching his father back on
Earth by ham radio, he said.
The trip will also have applications for Garriott's gaming design,
and he plans to communicate with players of his multi-player games
from space, including one that involves a science fiction space
scenario.
Astronauts Michael Fincke and Sandra Magnus and cosmonaut Yuri
Lonchakov, also travelling on the Soyuz, will remain aboard ISS as
its next crew. They will be joined later by Koichi Wakata, the first
Japanese astronaut to live long-term aboard the ISS.


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