Fifth paying tourist Simonyi back after space ferry

After experiencing a 14-day space ferry, Charles Simonyi, the world's fifth civilian space traveler, returned back safely to the Earth on Saturday. The 58-year-old native of Hungary returned to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-9 with Expedition 14 crew members, Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria of US and Russian Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, apparently after fulfilling his lifelong dream of space travel.

The Soyuz capsule carrying three travelers landed after a more than three-hour return trip from the orbital station. Images of Soyuz’s successful landing were broadcasted live on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s online television station.

Controllers who supervised the landing from Mission Control outside Moscow cheered and clapped along with the space travelers' relatives as they saw the announcement "It has landed!" appear in red capital letters on a giant screen.

Expedition 14 crew members, Nasa commander Lopez-Alegria and Russian cosmonaut Tyurin had spent record seven months aboard the ISS.

Simonyi looked delighted after Russian supporting teams helped them out from the rounded capsule. He smiled, grinned broadly and spoke animatedly with members of a support crew who greeted him with hugs and handshakes. In order to help them adapt to the gravity, rescuers placed the passengers on chair covered with fur for warmth.

“It’s good to back in the earth,” Simonyi said before biting into an apple as he sat in a special reclining chair. About the successful and safe landing, he said, “It wasn’t as difficult as I could have expected.”

Martha Stewart, the billionaire tourist’s best friend who had gone all the way to Baikonur, Kazakhstan, to see off her friend launched into space with an aluminium hamper full of gourmet food, was not present at the landing.

On his voyage to space station, Simonyi said, "Seeing the space station for the first time from inside the Soyuz was such an unforgettable experience. Seeing the Earth from space, so beautiful, majestic and calm, has filled me with great optimism."

During his stay in space, the longest by a tourist, Simonyi observed terrestrial phenomena including a volcanic eruption on the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean and an impact crater in northern Canada.

The American billionaire, who paid 25 million U.S. dollars to Space Adventures, Ltd., the world's leading space experiences company, for the space travel, has become 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.

Dennis Tito, an American investment advisor became the first tourist after his voyage to station in 2001, followed by the South African internet millionaire Mark Shuttleworth who flew in 2002. Gregory Olsen, chief executive officer of Princeton, New Jersey-based Sensors Unlimited went to space in 2004, while Anousheh Ansari, the Iranian-born chairwoman of Prodea Systems, visited the station last year.

Simonyi had been at the $US100 billion space station, in orbit 350 km above Earth, since April 9.

The Soyuz spaceship blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 7, carrying Expedition 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov. The spacecraft docked automatically with the station two days after orbiting the space. They arrived at the space station on April 9 and were greeted by the Expedition 14 crew.

Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov on board will stay in the station as the 15th crew for the next six month. They will remain onboard with Indian-American Sunita Williams, their third Expedition 15 crew member, who rode Space Shuttle Discovery to the station on December, 9.

Among the existing station habitants, 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.

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.

Born in Budapest in 1948, Simonyi left his native country Hungary at the age of 17 and is a US citizen since 1982. He worked at Microsoft for more than 20 years from 1981, leading teams of programmers that developed Microsoft Word and Excel software. He is now the co-founder and CEO of Bellevue, Washington based Intentional Software Corp.

The US software mogul is one of the 400 richest Americans and ranks 891 on the Forbes list of billionaires, with a $1 billion fortune.