BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) --
The U.S. scientist slated to become the third non-astronaut to visit the
international space station said Friday he was nervous ahead of the launch and
defended his joining the expedition as a necessary step in the evolution of
space flight.
"I will feel most
relaxed and most happy when the rocket is taking off," said Gregory
Olsen, of Princeton, N.J., whose trip reportedly costs $20 million.
"This has been two years of very hard work. In 20 hours, I will feel very,
very good."
Blastoff is scheduled for
Saturday at 7:54 a.m. Moscow time (11:54 p.m. EDT Friday).
With final preparations
under way for Expedition
12, the orbiting station's next crew - Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev and U.S. astronaut
William McArthur - joined with Olsen for last-minute medical checks and program
reviews as engineers prepared to fuel the Russian-built Soyuz rocket.
The three, now under
quarantine, visited with their families and participated in several Russian
preflight traditions, including watching the legendary Soviet-era film
"White Sun of the Desert."
At a news conference, Olsen,
whose trip was brokered by Virginia-based Space Adventures Ltd., said he
preferred the term "space flight participant" to "space tourist." Tokarev labeled Olsen as "scientific investigator of
the International Space Station."
"'Tourist' doesn't do
justice to all the work I've put in, or the work that
the people at the Gagarin center (outside Moscow) put in preparing us,"
Olsen said.
However, he said, "I will
not participate pretending that I'm an astronaut or cosmonaut. There is so much
knowledge needed to operate this vehicle."
Asked about what else he was
doing to get ready, Olsen responded: "All I have to do is to talk to my
4-year-old grandson, Justin ... That's all the mental preparation I need."
McArthur, a retired Army
colonel who has flown three times aboard the space shuttle, including one to
the Russian space station Mir, said he had no doubts about the Russian space
craft.
"The record of the
Soyuz indicates that it is a reliable vehicle. We have tremendous faith and
confidence in the people who built and assembled our
rocket," he said.
Olsen also rejected
assertions that space tourism was leading to the commercialization of space,
and he defended his participation as a necessary step in the evolution of space
flight.
"Everyone flies (on
planes) nowadays," he said. "The same will be true of space
flight."
Olsen is the third
non-astronaut to visit the station, preceded by American Dennis Tito four years ago and
South African Mark Shuttleworth in 2002.
After blasting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the middle
of Kazakhstan's barren steppes, the Soyuz TMA-7 capsule will rendezvous in two
days with the station, about 250 miles above the Earth. Along with the
station's current inhabitants, Russian Sergei Krikalev and American John
Phillips, the three will help bring cargo onboard and perform experiments.
Alongside the nearly four dozen
scientific experiments to be conducted during Expedition 12 will be at least
one commercial shoot: a plug for Japanese noodles. The Japanese Aerospace
Exploration Agency is sending a high-definition camera to the station so that a
cosmonaut can film a commercial for Nissin Food Products' Cup Noodle. The
commercial is set to air in November.
Phillips and Krikalev, who have been on the station since April, are
scheduled to return to Earth along with Olsen on Oct. 11, touching down in
Kazakhstan.
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