Space Tourist Greg Olsen Makes First Solo ISS Broadcast

Despite a satellite communications glitch, U.S. scientist and entrepreneur Gregory Olsen spoke live from the International Space Station (ISS) briefly Tuesday in the first of three planned solo broadcasts during his orbital spaceflight.

"Welcome to space," Olsen said through static and interrupted video, adding that the feed was suffering from satellite problems. "We're lucky to have any communications at all."

Olsen was able to thank his family, friends and colleagues who made the long trip from the United States to Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to witness his even longer trip into Earth orbit during his Sept. 30 launch. The broadcast was the first of three, 12-minute events Olsen plans during his time on orbit.

Olsen is the third space tourist - though he prefers the term spaceflight participant - to visit the ISS, and paid $20 million for the ride under an agreement with Russia's Federal Space Agency. His trip, like those of Mark Shuttleworth in 2002 and Dennis Tito in 2001, was brokered by the Arlington, Virginia space tourism firm Space Adventures.

"It's really nice here," Olsen said of the space station. "It's nice and roomy."

With its primary components - the Russian-built Zarya control module, Zvezda service module, and the U.S.-built Destiny laboratory - and docking ports, the space station is about as large as a three-bedroom home, NASA officials have said.

Olsen launched toward the ISS with NASA astronaut Bill McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev - the two-person crew of Expedition 12 - at 11:55 p.m. EDT on Sept. 30 (0355 Oct. 1 GMT). After two days of cramped spaceflight inside their Soyuz TMA-7 spacecraft, the three men docked at the space station at about 1:36 a.m. EDT (0436 GMT) on Oct. 3.

"In some ways it's like camping out, because we have no running water, no sinks and we kind of have to fend for ourselves for food," Olsen said.

During his brief broadcast, Olsen credited professors at Fairleigh Dickenson University in Teaneck, New Jersey - where he earned a masters degrees in physics - for fanning his interest in space. He also thanked engineering students at the University of Virginia, where Olsen attained his PhD in materials science, for building a spectrometer for his flight.

Olsen had hoped to take an infrared spectrometer built by his Princeton, New Jersey firm Sensors Unlimited on his ISS trip, but will instead conduct three medical experiments designed to study the human body's reaction to the absence of gravity for the European Space Agency.

Earlier Tuesday, Olsen joined the astronauts of the Expedition 11 and Expedition 12 space station to speak with reporters back on Earth via a video link.

During that group briefing, Olsen said the professional astronauts made him feel welcome aboard the space station.

• Gregory Olsen: Third Space Tourist Aims for Orbit
• Image Gallery: Space Tourist Greg Olsen prepares for launch
• Complete Coverage: ISS Expedition 11
• Complete Coverage: ISS Expedition 12