Despite
paying millions for a flight to the International Space Station (ISS), the next
tourist to the orbital platform does not plan to spend all of his time at play.
Gregory
Olsen, an American scientist and entrepreneur set to become the third space
tourist to visit the ISS, will participate in a trio of experiments for the
European Space Agency (ESA) during his eight days aboard the station.
"I think it's
very important to him," said Stacey Tearne, a spokesperson with the Arlington,
Va.-firm Space
Adventures, which brokered Olsen's flight. "He wants to experience space
and weightlessness. But being able to come back to research, and have some data...that
will be very fulfilling for him."
Olsen will
launch to the space station with ISS
Expedition 12 commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery Tokarev,
who will take over control of the orbital laboratory from its current
caretakers - cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and NASA astronaut John Phillips of Expedition
11. A Soyuz TMA-7 spacecraft is scheduled to carry Expedition 12 and Olsen
toward the ISS on Sept. 30 at 11:54 p.m. EDT (0354 Oct. 1 GMT), NASA officials
said.
Olsen's $20-million
spaceflight will follow the successful ISS flights of space tourists Dennis Tito in 2001 and Mark
Shuttleworth in 2002. Those flights, like Olsen's, were also brokered by Space
Adventures.
As part of the
agreement with the ESA, Olsen will serve as the test subject for two human
physiology studies in microgravity. Included among them is the Motion
Perception (MOP) study to better understand motion sickness, as well as a study
of lower back pain which ISS astronauts experience during long-duration spaceflights.
Olsen will also help collect data on the different types of microbes living aboard
the station and its crew, Space Adventures officials said.
"Learning
how to live and work in space and my upcoming mission are truly a dream come
true for me," Olsen said in a statement released Monday. "But I am first and
foremost a scientist, and I am going to carry out real science aboard the ISS...I
do not consider myself a space tourist."
Hailing
from Princeton, New Jersey, Olsen founded the firms Epitaxx, Inc. and Sensors
Unlimited, Inc. His upcoming flight will mark the end of a sometimes rocky road
to space, during which an undisclosed medical condition prematurely ended
his cosmonaut training. That condition has since been resolved, Olsen
said.
In an
earlier interview,
Olsen told SPACE.com that he also hoped to communicate with local Princeton
schoolchildren via ham radio sessions.
"He just
can't wait," said Tearne, who has been communicating with Olsen via e-mail, of
his upcoming mission. "He's like a kid in a candy store."
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