Sunday, April 22, 2007 | Science : In the News | print version

Space tourist makes safe return

by BBC

Reposted from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6578835.stm

charles in space!

Billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi and two crew from the international space station (ISS) have safely returned to Earth.

The Soyuz spacecraft carrying the trio touched down on the steppes of Kazakhstan at 1631 (1231 GMT).

Mr Simonyi, a Hungarian-born US software engineer, paid $25m (£12.7m) for his 10-day stay on the ISS.

The 58-year-old is the fifth person to pay for a trip into space.

On his two-day journey to the ISS Mr Simonyi travelled with two replacement crew for the space station.

Radiation experiment

He returned to Earth along with Russian Mikhail Tyurin and US astronaut Miguel Lopez-Alegria, who have both been on the ISS since September.

Another US astronaut, Sunita Williams, has remained on board with newly-arrived cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov of Russia.

Mr Simonyi, who amassed a fortune through his work on computer software, including helping to develop Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, is the 450th person to enter orbit and, by his own admission, "the first nerd in space".

Among the cargo he carried with him was a gourmet meal of roast quail marinated in wine and duck breast, selected by American lifestyle guru Martha Stewart, a friend of Mr Simonyi.

While on board the space station Mr Simonyi carried out a series of experiments including measuring the amount of radiation he was exposed to while on board the ISS.

The aim is to help to generate an accurate map of the station's radiation environment.

Mr Simonyi began training for the flight six months ago at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, Russia; and at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

He underwent a gruelling physical programme, including strict medical tests, to prepare him for the ride to escape the Earth's atmosphere and his time onboard the ISS.

His trip was arranged by US-based Space Adventures.

The firm has previously sent four private explorers to space:

- American Dennis Tito in 2001
- South African Mark Shuttleworth in 2002
- American Greg Olsen in 2005
- Iranian-born US businesswoman Anousheh Ansari in September 2006.

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1. Comment #33840 by Ole on April 22, 2007 at 5:20 am

First some trivia:
Those who have been into programming, may know this:



szName = "Simonyi" ;

The sz (zero-terminated string "sz") is also called "Hungarian notation" - after Simonyi.

Maybe we should look at this question:

How much TOE has Simonyi (and the other space tourist) used?
(TOE = tonnes of oil equivalent per person)

Statistic says that USA is on top with 8.35 TOE per person.

If we look at individual consumption of TOE, the space tourist is clerly on top!

Ole

P.S. More about TOE here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton_of_oil_equivalent

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2. Comment #33843 by PeterRobertson on April 22, 2007 at 6:04 am

Hungarian notation! It's a pity there isn't a hell for him to burn in forever :-)

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3. Comment #33844 by rodviking on April 22, 2007 at 6:07 am

I guess the "first nerd in space" title rightfully belongs to Mark Shuttleworth, founder and leader of the Ubuntu project.

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4. Comment #33869 by brue68 on April 22, 2007 at 10:35 am

yes, rodviking, I think so, too. (do you know if it's worth it to switch from Edgy Eft to Fiesty Fawn, yet?)

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5. Comment #33986 by gcdavis on April 23, 2007 at 1:12 am

Resumably the same Simonyi that endowed RD's chair at Oxford

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6. Comment #34188 by Steven Mading on April 23, 2007 at 1:22 pm

Darn. I used to respect this guy (Even though he worked for Microsoft, Microsoft Word is what he did there, and the evil decision to use Word as a tool to enhance Windows dominance was not his doing.) Anyway, like I said, I used to respect this guy.

But now that I found out he's the one responsible for Hungarian Notation? Man, how can I respect that? The notion that variables should be named to match their type so that you can't change their type without also changing lots of lines of code - evil, evil! We should have left that behind with Fortran.

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