American billionaire Charles Simonyi is gearing up for his
second trip to space as a paying civilian.
Set to launch Thursday at 7:49 a.m. EDT (1149 GMT) on a
Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Simonyi will
become the first
two-time space tourist. He is to ride along with the International Space
Station (ISS)'s new Expedition 19 crewmembers, NASA astronaut Michael Barratt
and Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka.
Simonyi paid about $35 million to the Russian Federal Space
Agency, through the U.S. firm Space Adventures, for his
13-day trip to the orbiting laboratory. He plans to conduct scientific
experiments, take pictures of Earth and talk to students around the world via
HAM Radio. He said he hopes to accomplish even more than he did during his
first trip in 2007.
"The efficiency of working in space is just increased
so much by having had the prior experience," Simonyi told SPACE.com in
a recent interview. "It's a little bit like riding a bicycle. When you get
to space it's a different environment. Weightlessness has all kinds of effects
on how you work and how you feel. It's much more efficient to do it the second
time."
Simonyi made his fortune as a computer software executive,
working for Microsoft and later founding his own company, the Intentional
Software Corp. He said he's been a space enthusiast his whole life, and even
represented his native Hungary as a Junior Cosmonaut at age 13, when he won a
trip to Moscow to meet one of the first cosmonauts. He is an avid pilot and has
logged more than 2,000 hours of flying time.
One big change between Simonyi's upcoming flight and his
last is that this time he'll be leaving behind his wife, Lisa Persdotter, whom
he married last year.
"I'm very happy that my wife supports me in this,"
he said. "It just makes it that much more precious."
Simonyi will be the
first repeat customer for Vienna, Va.-based Space Adventures, which began
organizing space missions for private citizens in 2001.
"I think he's going to continue to work towards achieving
the objectives he laid out originally, but he's going to go a little more in
depth," Eric Anderson, Space Adventures president, told SPACE.com. "It's
like seeing a movie for the second time, or going back to a city you've visited
once before, and knowing what to do."
Simonyi paid an extra $5 million to be part of Space
Adventures' Orbital Missions Explorers Circle, an elite club
that allowed him to skip ahead of others on the waiting list for trips to
space.
During his mission, Simonyi plans to blog about his
experiences on a daily basis at his Web site www.charlesinspace.com.
He will be visiting a much-changed space station, compared
to the relatively smaller ISS he stayed on in 2007. Since that trip, the huge
Japanese Kibo lab module, the European Columbus module, and final sets of solar
arrays - the last of which were unfurled last week by shuttle Discovery
astronauts - among other things, have been added to the orbiting outpost.
Simonyi said he's looking forward to seeing the station again in all its glory.
"It's such an unexpected jewel in the emptiness of
space," he said. "It's a bit theatrical in its shape, its appearance
and colors."
If Simonyi is unable to fly at the last minute, entrepreneur
Esther Dyson could fill in. Dyson, daughter of eminent physicist Freeman
Dyson, paid $3 million to train as Simonyi's backup, and hopes to travel to space
eventually.
Simonyi's second spaceflight comes on the heels of NASA's shuttle
Discovery mission to complete the space station's power grid.
Commanded by veteran spaceflyer Lee Archambault, Discovery's crew is due to
undock from the station on Wednesday and return to Earth Saturday to complete a
13-day construction flight to the orbiting laboratory.
SPACE.com will provide full coverage of Simonyi's second
space tourist flight and the Expedition 19 mission with reporter Clara
Moskowitz and senior editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click
here for mission updates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed.
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