Space Tourist Simonyi Prepares For Second Flight

Toren Altair writes "Space Adventures announced today that Charles Simonyi, Ph.D., intends to train with the Soyuz TMA-14 crew in preparation for a spring mission in 2009 to the International Space Station. Simonyi flew his first space mission in 2007. He would be the first space tourist to repeat the experience. Space Adventures' sixth orbital spaceflight participant, Richard Garriott, son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, is currently scheduled to launch to the ISS on October 12 of this year."

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Is it that, since his physical characteristics include an oral cavity and, in addition, since he is capable of pulling a vacuum with said oral cavity he therefore is able to (a la, "he physically can") suck your alleged penis?

Or is it instead that you are giving him notice that you have granted him permission to suck said alleged penis?

Or is it that he is especially knowledgeable and skilled at the art of sucking your alleged penis, as in: wow, that dude can suck a penis,

Re:

[Aardpig]

You forgot to write 'Simonyi, PhD'. Remember, PhDs are difficulty to get, and people with them are important.

Re:

[the_skywise]

I think you mean phdSimonyi...

blech...

Son of NASA astronaut?

[hweimer]

Come on, Richard Garriot [wikipedia.org] (Lord British, of Ultima [wikipedia.org] fame) is one of the founding fathers of the gaming industry as we know it, not just the son of some random astronaut ...

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[Chris Burke]

Well, I gotta say, much as I love Ultima, even random astronaut is still way cooler than legendary game developer.

Legendary game developer AND astronaut spawn, who himself is heading to space? That's pretty freaking awesome. Though yeah, should have been a part in there about him being Lord British. :)

Re:

[_Sprocket_]

There is something poetic about this; the whole following Dad's footsteps thing (albeit maybe just a taste of what Dad did). I'm also amused by the idea that Richard managed to get to space via the Houston Science Fair... just not quite the route one would expect.

Re:

[snuf23]

It should also be noted that Owen Garriott spent 60 days in Skylab and was also onboard for the Shuttle's SpaceLab mission. Perhaps extra poetic that Richard's destination is the ISS.

Re:

[lysergic.acid]

yes, perhaps being an astronaut _is_ cooler than being a legendary game developer (depends on how legendary, really), but being the son of an astronaut is not more noteworthy than actually being the developer of Ultima.

it's rather insulting to refer to someone by their relations when they've already made a name for themselves based on their own merits.

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[waffledoodle]

He is also a nice guy and throws awesome parties.

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[elysiana]

Apparently Owen Garriott [wikipedia.org] spent time aboard SpaceLab, and Richard will be the first [richardinspace.com] second-generation American astronaut. I'd say they're pointing out the relation because it's so significant, not because they're downplaying his own fame.

WTF Charlie?

[LibertineR]

You said you had no spare cash on you, when I paid for Sushi.

Payup bitch! I KNOW you got it!

Quit hogging the Soyuz!

[Wesley Felter]

Come on man, give someone else a chance to ride.

Re:

[isBandGeek()]

I suspect the demand for space tourism is rather low at the current price. Not everyone would drop $20 million on a flight even if they had the money.

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[Fred_A]

Apparently a lot of bankers are ending up with a lot more cash than they initially expected. So maybe space tourism will finally take off.

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[Haoie]

Oh nobody's stopping you.

So long as you have a few million bucks lying around.

If we can send one Microsoft alumnus to space ...

[David Gerard]

... can we send the rest of them? [today.com]

Martha will be so proud...

[ivandavidoff]

And that's a good thing!

Shorter Title

[kylben]

nTripsToSpace++; would have said the same thing more succinctly.

Re:

[SomeJoel]

No, that title would be stupid on many levels.

Re:

[sleeponthemic]

Finally! I've been waging war over 6 (and above) word titles for quite some time now! Infact, I've done some preliminary research on up to 4 word reduction also.

Unfortunately, I got rather a snotty marketing letter back when I sent Pete Jackson my plans to rename his opus to (Lord). These Hollywood hacks threaten our very existence with their redundancy.

Re:

[krem81]

I'm surprised it took so long to get a Hungarian notation joke in. I'm even more surprised it's not modded higher.

Re:

[jonaskoelker]

Well, let's be precise here.

lpszAstronautName = "Simonyi";
++nTripsToSpace;
dZ_EarthAstronaut = cKilometers(36000.0); // not _centi_ kilometers, _class_ kilometers.
hvsl = cShuttle::m_getSingleton();
hdst = rgspcstn[I18N];
hvsl.launch(g_getAstronaut(lpszAstronautName), hdst);

Re:

[beav007]

Do we not want him back? Or are we relying on auto garbage collection?

*cough*

Re:

[jonaskoelker]

We better take him out before we put hvsl, the shuttle, into the destructor!

Hooked on Soyuz...

[GlobalColding]

What happens on Soyuz, stays on Soyuz. Once you've gone Soyuz you'll never go back. In Soviet Union - Soyuz ebet vseh (dammit doesnt let me post Cyrillic). And so on, and so on. Smithers, release the hounds!

He's not a tourist at all!

[VincenzoRomano]

If he's preparing for a mission, I would say he's not a tourist.
The latter is supposed to go in the outer space just for fun.
Or not?

I have no interest in visting outer space...

[PinkyDead]

...it's got far too touristy.