Video game magnate takes off in Russian space ship

BAIKONUR: US space tourist Richard Garriott blasted off into space aboard a Russian rocket on Sunday watched by his father, a NASA astronaut who went into space at the height of the Cold War.

A video game developer from Texas, Garriott paid $35 million to fly into space alongside US astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yury
Lonchakov. Garriott’s father, Owen, watched the blast off through binoculars on an
observation platform.

Space officials said the Soyuz rocket had reached orbit safely and would dock with the International Space Station in about two days. “He made it, he made it into orbit. It is marvellous,” said Owen Garriott, a physicist who was selected as an astronaut by NASA for his scientific background.

After 10 days in space Garriott will return to Earth with the ISS’s former crew aboard a Soyuz re-entry vehicle, a 3 person capsule which has malfunctioned on its last two flights.