"I don't view it as a risk
at all," said Olsen, who is set to blast off in a Russian Soyuz ship with
Russian Valery Tokarev and
U.S. astronaut William McArthur from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Oct. 1.
"Soyuz has an excellent
reputation for safety and reliability," said Olsen, who is paying the Russian
space agency US$20 million (euro16 million) for a weeklong visit to the station.
He added that his crew mates were "one of the best crews that ever were.''
Olsen, 60, told a news
conference that he would bring about 35 relatives, including his grandson,
along with friends and co-workers to the launch.
Olsen's flight was brokered
by Space Adventures Ltd. of Arlington, Virginia. The company has sent two other
space tourists to the International Space Station through a partnership with
Russia's space agency.
Olsen, who has advanced
degrees in physics and materials science, made a small fortune on optic
inventions. He is the co-founder of Sensors Unlimited Inc., a business in
suburban Trenton, New Jersey, which makes infrared imaging cameras and
fiber-optic communications components.
"My background is that I'm
a scientist in physics and electrical engineering, so space obviously is a very
big interest," he said.
McArthur said that Olsen's
engineering experience makes him a "tremendous asset" for the crew.
Olsen will spend a week
aboard the station, orbiting some 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth, then
return with the current space station crew on Oct. 11.
Olsen said he hopes to get
on board a spectrometer designed by the University of Virginia to look at
moisture in agricultural areas on Earth and also study clouds. He also plans to
do three medical experiments for the European Space Agency.
"I have absolutely no fears
and anxieties," he said. "It's an exciting time for me and I just look forward
to the experience."
His flight was pushed back
after doctors with the Russian space program found an unspecified medical
ailment that was since rectified, and in May he was cleared to fly.
"Last year I had a very
minor medical problem that disqualified me temporarily from flight," he said,
without naming it. "The problem has gone away, I'm
fully fit and certified by the medical people."
The cash-strapped Russian
space program has sought to supplement scarce government funding with revenues
from space tourism. California businessman Dennis Tito paid the Russian space
agency about US$20 million for a weeklong trip to the international space
station in 2001, and South African Mark Shuttleworth
followed suit a year later.
Olsen said he had spoken to
each of them, and "they both said to me that whatever I feel now about space I
will feel better when I'm up there."
Complete
Coverage: ISS Expedition 12
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