CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- South African space tourist Mark Shuttleworth is reported to be doing well Friday as the new Soyuz lifeboat he is riding in remains on course for arrival at the International Space Station early Saturday.
With veteran cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko at the controls, the Soyuz is to dock with an Earth-facing port on the station's Zarya module at 3:57 a.m. EDT (0757 GMT).
Launched early Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Gidzenko, Shuttleworth and Italian Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori enjoyed a peaceful night's rest before beginning their first full day in space, Russian space officials said.
"The day of the launch was very busy, especially for the novices. For this reason Shuttleworth and Vittori slept very soundly," Igor Goncharov, a Russian flight surgeon at Mission Control outside Moscow, was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying.
The rookie fliers -- Shuttleworth and Vittori -- could be seen on television screens in Mission Control smiling, appearing healthy and answering questions in Russian, "which indicates their well-being," Viktor Blagov, a Russian space station manager, told ITAR-Tass.
Shuttleworth is paying the Russians a reported $20 million for his seat, while Vittori is aboard as part of an agreement between the Italian Space Agency and Rosaviokosmos, the Russian Aviation and Space Agency.Gidzenko is making his third spaceflight and his second trip to the space station. He served 136 days on the Expedition One crew, departing in March 2001 a complex that has since more than doubled in size.
Once the Soyuz TM-34 spacecraft is safely latched to the frontier outpost to create an air-tight seal, the hatches will be opened and the taxi crew is expected to board the station about 5:20 a.m. EDT (0929 GMT) Saturday.
When they float inside the Russian space tug they will be greeted with open arms by Expedition Four crewmembers Yuri Onufrienko, Carl Walz and Dan Bursch.
For Shuttleworth the atmosphere aboard space station Alpha should be "officially" warmer than when American businessman Dennis Tito visited in April 2001 as the world's first fare-paying space tourist.
Tito's flight came at a time when NASA was unprepared for the actual presence of tourists on the station and the space agency -- following the orders of then-NASA Administrator Dan Goldin -- barely acknowledged Tito's presence.
Since then agreements among the station's international partners have been signed and protocols for training and on-orbit operations and behavior have been worked out, making it easier for the Expedition crews to understand their role while any tourists are on board.
"I don't anticipate doing any baby sitting," Bursch said during a recent space-to-ground interview with CBS News. "Anybody who's been as successful as Mark Shuttleworth probably doesn't need baby sitting."
Shuttleworth, who hates to be called a tourist, plans to conduct a series of science experiments that study the effects of weightlessness on a variety of living cells and other material.
"His plan, from what I've heard, seems pretty aggressive as far as what he wants to accomplish. He has some definite goals, some science objectives," Bursch said. "I'm looking forward to their visit and it'll be interesting to see how he operates up here. We'll help out as much as we can."
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