Fifth paying tourist Simonyi arrives at Space Station

After orbiting the space for two days, billionaire software engineer Charles Simonyi and two Russian cosmonauts finally arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday, sharing back slaps, hugs and smiles with the three crew members who have been manning the station for the past six months.

Simonyi, the world's fifth paying space tourist, along with Expedition 15 crew, Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov, docked in their Soyuz spacecraft two days after launching from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Soyuz capsule carrying three travelers docked automatically with the station, and Simonyi and two Russian cosmonauts floated into the space station about 90 minutes later, prompting loud applause from assembled Russian and American officials and visitors at Russian Mission Control, including American lifestyle maven Martha Stewart.

To receive congratulations and well-wishes from friends and relatives at mission control, station's all six inhabitants, including Simonyi, lined up in front of a camera. Simonyi’s close friend Martha immediately told him from mission control: "You are out of this world."

The US software mogul, Simonyi, who is flying under contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency, has paid $US25 million for his journey to the already-orbiting space station.

Simyoni will return home with Expedition 14 crew members, Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria of US and Russian Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, on April 20, while Yurchikhin and Kotov will stay back for six-months.

Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria have been living in space since Sept. 18, while Indian-American Sunita Williams, their third Expedition 15 crew member, rode Space Shuttle Discovery to the station on December, 9. She will remain onboard with Yurchikhin and Kotov.

For station’s habitants, it is always a great pleasure to meet new crew members, and this time the ISS recipient crew got an extra delight- the gourmet food brought by Simonyi. The dinner is to be eaten on Thursday, the day Russia marks as Cosmonauts' Day, the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin making the first manned space flight in 1961.

An aluminium hamper of gourmet food, including quail marinated in wine, duck breast with capers and rice pudding, was supplied by Martha, who saw him off into space from the launch-pad in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan on Saturday. Media have reported the lifestyle guru is romantically involved with Simonyi, and there had been speculation the software mogul would propose to her before lift-off.

The 58-years-old billionaire was born in Hungary but now lives in the United States, where he amassed a fortune through his work with computer software. At 33, he joined Microsoft, where he oversaw the development of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, after which he became the billionaire.

Simonyi took along with him sample of paper computer tapes that he used decades ago when he first learned programming on a bulky Soviet machine called Ural-2. While at the orbiting laboratory, Simonyi will be conducting a number of experiments, including measuring radiation levels and studying biological organisms inside the lab.

Simonyi is the world’s fifth paying tourist after Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Gregory Olsen and Anousheh Ansari, who have been to the International Space Station as tourists.

Expedition 14 crew member 41-years-old Williams is a Naval Academy graduate and a Navy commander. She flew helicopters and was a helicopter test pilot before being selected as an astronaut in 1998.

Expedition 15 crew member Yurchikhin, 48, is making his second flight into space. He was a member of the STS-112 crew which launched to the station aboard Atlantis on Oct. 7, 2002, with the Starboard 1 Truss. He holds a Ph.D. in economics and was named a cosmonaut-candidate in 1997.

Kotov, 41, the other Expedition crew member is making his first spaceflight. He graduated from the Moscow Medical Academy in 1988, and was named a cosmonaut-candidate in 1996.