NEW YORK - The
world's third fare-paying visitor to the International Space Station (ISS) is
back home in the U.S. after a successful spaceflight that peaked with 10 days
in orbit.
Gregory
Olsen, a U.S. scientist and entrepreneur who reportedly paid about $20
million to visit the ISS, said Monday that not only was the trip worth the
hefty price, but he's more than willing to go again after taking some time to
reflect on the experience.
"I want to
digest this and see what my next move in life is," Olsen, 60, told SPACE.com,
adding that he shook off the effects of spaceflight about 24 hours after
landing. "The first day I came back I was a little wobbly."
Olsen returned
to Earth on Oct. 10 with Expedition
11 commander Sergei Krikalev and flight engineer John Phillips, who had
wrapped up a six-month mission to the space station. The landing came about 10
days after Olsen launched
to the ISS with Expedition
12 commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery Tokarev. Olsen said he returned to the U.S. on Oct. 15.
The most
memorable aspect of the flight by far was floating around the ISS and watching
Earth pass by in the window, Olsen said, adding that liftoff - just as the
rocket began to rise toward space - was also a highlight.
Olsen
shared his spaceflight experience with students via ham radio sessions from the
ISS, and he hopes to continue that process now that he's back on Earth.
"It's
extremely important," Olsen said of sharing his flight with others. "We want
to go into space, it's the next step in exploration ...we need to fire up the
imaginations of people."
An
interesting landing
While Olsen's
launch and Oct. 3 docking
at the ISS were smooth, a pressurization glitch aboard the Soyuz TMA-6 carrying
him and the Expedition 11 crew home made for an interesting descent.
"We had
certain problems with pressurization before undocking and certain pressurization
problems in the descent," Krikalev said during a post-landing press conference
on Oct. 13, according to Russia's Interfax News Agency. "In fact, it was a
fairly serious situation."
But the
Expedition 11 astronauts kept their cool, as well as close tabs on the glitch, during
reentry, and all three space flyers were clad in their Russian-built Sokol space
suits - a standard precaution - for an extra layer of protection, Olsen said.
"But at no
time was there panic or alarm, or anything of that sort," Olsen said of the
glitch, adding that at one point in the descent he added more oxygen into the
Soyuz cabin under Krikalev's instructions. "We had practiced that many times
during simulations...I thought they handled it like pros."
Olsen said
that while he enjoyed the descent, he was somewhat saddened to say goodbye to
Expedition 12's McArthur and Tokarev.
The
scientist-CEO trained repeatedly with the two veteran astronauts, and Tokarev
even designed a special patch for Olsen's flight, which he presented to the
spaceflight participant one month before launch, Olsen said.
"It was a little
tough and a little wistful, because both of them took me under their wings," Olsen
said of his departure. "I felt very grateful to them because they helped me get
into space and I felt I was leaving them behind."
Olsen's
spaceflight capped a challenging road into orbit, which began
in March 2004 but was cut short when an undisclosed medical
condition prevented him from completing his first round of cosmonaut
training in Russia's Star City. Olsen was able to resume
training in May 2005, but the period between July 2004 and March 2005 was a "really
tough time," he said.
"I was
devastated last year with the medical thing," Olsen said. "I felt this [flight]
was a vindication."
Olsen's
trip followed the 2002 ISS flight by South African Internet mogul Mark
Shuttleworth and the 2001 trip by U.S. entrepreneur Dennis Tito. All three
trips were brokered by Arlington, Virginia-based space tourism firm Space
Adventures.
Japanese
businessman Daisuke Enomoto and an American are reportedly in the running to be
the next paying visitor to the ISS, according to Russia's Federal Space Agency
and the country's Interfax News Agency.
Stacey
Tearne, a Space Adventures spokesperson, said there's a long list of people
interested in becoming the fourth space tourist to the ISS, and an announcement
could come as early as next month.
An
orbital ride
During his
flight, Olsen performed a series of experiments
for the European Space Agency (ESA) designed to study the human body's reaction
spaceflight.
Each day,
he would swivel his head and body through a series of planned motions, then
record his vestibular reactions in a notebook, Olsen said, adding that he also
swabbed different areas inside the ISS for a bacterial study.
The amount
of stowed cargo in the space station surprised the space tourist - though Olsen
prefers the term "spaceflight participant" - but made sense considering the ISS
crews spent six months at a time aboard the orbital laboratory, he said.
Long
stretches without visiting NASA space shuttles - Discovery's recent ISS flight
in July was the first to the station since December 2002 - have prevented crews
from shedding all their unneeded items and required them to stock additional spare
parts and equipment.
Olsen did
lose track of a small digital camera, which accidentally drifted out of his
pocket during the spaceflight.
"I had some
nice shots of going up in the Soyuz on that," Olsen said adding that he hopes
it turns up. "Fortunately, I had a lot of other video and stills from the
flight."
Olsen had
hoped to bring up an infrared camera built by Sensors Unlimited, Inc. - the Princeton,
New Jersey company he co-founded - to the ISS, but the instrument's shipment
from the U.S. to Russia was delayed due to export regulations, he said.
But export
controls aside, Olsen said he was very satisfied with life aboard the ISS,
adding that the food was tasty - the shrimp cocktail was better than in some
restaurants on Earth - and that he got a chance to dig into the reserved "bonus
boxes" that contained extra goodies for ISS astronauts.
"I did raid
the bonus boxes of Krikalev and Phillips since they were going back down," he
said.
Olsen
praised the multi-national partnership that led to the space station, adding
that the dependability of Russia's Soyuz vehicles is an impressive feat.
"The
Russians do spaceflight very well," Olsen said.
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