American
billionaire Charles Simonyi is reacquainting himself with gravity after a
two-week voyage to the International Space Station (ISS); an orbital trip chock
full of precious moments.
"You know, every
part had its highlights, and they just kept coming and coming," Simonyi, 58,
told SPACE.com Monday via telephone from Star City, Russia. "Arriving at
the space station, for example. I knew that that would be magic, and it was
beyond my wildest dreams how the space station looked."
Simonyi, a former
Microsoft software developer and lifelong spaceflight enthusiast, spent nearly
14 days in orbit -- 12 of them aboard the space station -- under a $20
million-to-$25 million deal between Russia's Federal Space Agency and the
Virginia-based firm Space Adventures. He is the world's fifth space tourist to
visit the ISS and set a new spaceflight endurance record for the longest trek
by a private spaceflyer during the flight.
"I don't
see this about records and I don't think that such a record will stand for
long," Simonyi said of his flight, which he chronicled at his Web site: www.charlesinspace.com. "I'm just
happy that we had that extra time. It would have been even busier without it,
so it's kind of hard to imagine how we could have finished packing."
Simonyi
launched towards the ISS with its new Expedition 15 crew -- cosmonauts Fyodor
Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov -- on April 7 and returned
with Expedition 14 commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineer Mikhail
Tyurin on April 21. Two weeks of weightlessness left the Hungary-born
Simonyi a bit off balance, though he has already begun readaptation sessions
that include liberal doses of swimming.
"Swimming
is actually very nice," Simonyi said. "It's just a safe way to exercise and
make an effort without falling over."
Drifting
off to sleep in a sleeping bag strung up like a hammock inside a Russian
docking compartment aboard the station was both comfortable and fun, Simonyi
said, but confessed that some terrestrial niceties were unavailable aboard the
orbital laboratory.
"I was
missing showers and beer," Simonyi said, adding that he has partaken of both
luxuries since returning to Earth. "I'm sipping a little beer right now."
Simonyi said
he is looking forward to getting back to his work at Intentional Software
Corp., which he co-founded, and resuming his life on Earth.
"This was a
unique opportunity and I had to do that now," said Simonyi, who once
represented his native Hungary as a Junior Astronaut on a trip to Moscow at age
13. "I interrupted and put everything aside in my life now I have to restart my
life. The guys at Intentional Software are doing some great stuff and I want to
rejoin it."
Of
vistas and video
Among the
many images burned in Simonyi's mind from his spaceflight are the dazzling
transitions between night and day in Earth orbit.
The ISS
orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes, giving astronauts 16 sunrises and
sunsets every 24 hours. Simonyi and the Expedition 15 crew docked at the ISS on
April 9 just as the Sun set over the horizon with amazing speed, which the
space tourist likened to the lighting of a modern opera during his flight.
"When they
happen, the color of everything changes," Simonyi said of sunsets in space. "In
about 10 seconds it changes from brilliant white, through all the shades to
essentially invisible black...that was sunset someplace.
"I did not
know what I was looking at, but it was the most incredible thing," Simonyi
said.
During his
12 days aboard the ISS, Simonyi performed a series of experiments for the
Federal Space Agency, European Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
and the Hungary Space Office. He also made
numerous radio and video broadcasts from orbit, many of which conducted
with students on Earth, in efforts to spur interest in human spaceflight,
science and technology.
"We had
four million visitors to the Web site...I can't even imagine such a number,"
Simonyi said, adding that he was able to answer about 100 questions pertaining
to life in space during his flight. "We are going to put more material [online]
and I think it's going to be great to be able to share this experience."
Simonyi
said he was surprised to learn about the finer details of life in space, such
as the relative ease of eating beef and vegetables -- which stuck together when
they drifted free of a fork -- when compared to the multi-step process of
preparing a juice drink from its powdered form (which requires pumping a bag
full of lukewarm water, mixing it up, then letting it cool before attempting
the tricky task of inserting a straw without spilling wet liquid spheres around
the space station).
"I don't know
where spaceflight would be without Velcro," Simonyi said, adding that
spaceflyers get a certain despondent look on their faces -- one he also wore
during the flight -- when searching station walls and air filters for lost
items. "Even with all that Velcro, it's pretty difficult to get simple things
done."
Simonyi has
said he hopes his trip encourages others to take similar voyages, each of which
will lead to even larger steps to further space exploration.
"When you
looking at 'Star Trek', there has to be some path to get there," Simonyi said
before flight. "And I think that now's the time to make the incremental steps."
advertisement
