U.S. entrepreneur Charles
Simonyi has a brand new suit, and it comes with a pretty sweet ride.
The
Hungary-born American software developer is ecstatic about his new Russian-built
Sokol
spacesuit, a must-have item for his planned April 7 launch towards the International Space
Station (ISS).
“Just being
in my own spacesuit that I will be able to keep after the flight was really an
incredible experience,” Simonyi, 58, said this week as he headed from Moscow to Russia’s
Star City cosmonaut training center to complete his preflight
training [image].
Simonyi is
paying more
than $20 million to visit the ISS under a deal brokered
with the Russian Federal Space Agency by the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures.
He will become the fifth paying visitor to the ISS when he launches aboard a
Russian-built Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft with two
professional cosmonauts -- part of the station’s Expedition
15 crew -- on 10-day spaceflight to the orbital laboratory.
He is
documenting his spaceflight on his website www.charlesinspace.com with blogs,
images, videos and a recently added children’s section -- dubbed Kids’ Space --
to share his ISS-bound experience. (Simonyi’s initials Ch S personalize his
Sokol spacesuit, and apparently can also stand for “clean spacesuit” in Russian,
he writes).
“I have to
say that my hopes are more than fulfilled, both in terms of the training and in
terms of what I can communicate,” Simonyi, a former Microsoft software
developer and co-founder of Intentional Software Corp, told SPACE.com in
a telephone interview.
Reaching
space has been a lifelong ambition for Simonyi, an experienced aircraft pilot
who, at age 13, represented
his native Hungary as a Junior Cosmonaut on a trip to Moscow in 1963.
“It has
been an amazing journey,” said Simonyi, who plans to participate in a series of
biomedical experiments during his upcoming spaceflight.
Survival
skills
Simonyi is
returning to Star City after a successful round of winter survival training, in
which he and other cosmonauts tested their wits and learned the Russian
equivalent of “Mayday, Mayday” (Terpim bedstvye, or “We are suffering a
disaster,” he writes).
“They
brought us into the forest where we had to live for two days and nights using
only equipment that we found in the spacecraft,” Simonyi said [image].
“Such as parachutes, nylon and parachute lines and seat liners.”
Simonyi
also spent two hours tied fast to the customized seat liner while clad in his
spacesuit, and is gearing up to test the spacesuit in a vacuum chamber to
measure its integrity.
“It will be
an interesting experience,” Simonyi said of the test. “If anything goes wrong,
it will be a disaster.”
But Simonyi
remains steadfast in what he deems the most challenging chore of preflight
training: taking a spin on a revolving chair designed to help prepare future
spaceflyers for the initial space sickness experienced in a weightless
environment [image].
“It was
just unpleasant,” he told reporters this week. “I will probably have to do more
of it to train myself against space sickness.”
Simonyi
said he plans to perform additional weightlessness training aboard a Russian
aircraft and participate in a series integrated simulations to rehearse
in-flight activities [image].
Help
from Hungary’s First Spaceflyer
A high point in Simonyi’s preflight training came from the guidance he’s received from Bertalan
Farkas, a cosmonaut who became Hungary’s first spaceflyer in 1980 during an
eight-day Soyuz mission.
“We turned
out to be about the same age and we grew up at the same time and now he’s
helping me tremendously with the preparations for the spaceflight,” Simonyi
said.
Simonyi is
also looking ahead to after his coming spaceflight, when he hopes to continue
to share his experiences -- not to mention his Sokol spacesuit -- to help
bolster interest and support in private human spaceflight.
“I think
that it will definitely be on loan to some museum,” Simonyi said of his
spacesuit. “At the same time, I’d like to retain it for its sentimental value
and, from time to time, try it on.”
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