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.
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