The crew consists of Russian flight captain Gennady Padalka, American flight engineer Mike Barrat, and space tourist from the US Charles Simonyi.

The first space tourist returning to the orbit

It is actually the first time in history that a space tourist goes to the orbit twice and this man is U.S. billionaire Charles Simonyi.

Overall, two trips to space have cost him some $60 million.

Simonyi could also be the last space tourist at the ISS because starting in 2010, the US space shuttle programme will cease operations, which will make the Russian Soyuz vehicles the only possible transport for the American astronauts to the ISS. This means that there will simply be no space for space adventurers on board.

The flight programme

At the final press conference, Charles Simonyi and Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka spoke about what kind of research work they are about to carry out while in space.

Astronaut Simonyi said that “this flight I am going to do much more ham radio contacts with schools and answer school childrens' questions.”

Captain Padalka says that “the environmental is quite interesting – our problem districts for example. The construction of the Olympic venues in Sochi will be monitored from space. We’ll be taking high resolution photos in order for specialists on Earth to analyse how carefully we treat the protected areas.”

The flight draws public interest

This flight is enjoying a lot of public interest. Many NASA astronauts and also journalists have gathered in town since several days prior to launch.

Relatives of Charles Simonyi and the family of Mike Barrat will also be at the launch site: Simonyi’s young Swedish-born wife and five kids of Mike Barrat will watch the launch.

“I am very proud. I mean it’s not every day you can say ”My dad is in space, how cool is that!“ It is an honour but no fun. It is different when he is in space instead of sort of being at the dinner table with us,” Barrat’s daughter Meeta said.

The wife of American astronaut Michelle Barrat said that though in space, cosmonauts will be able to stay in touch with their loved ones.

“He will actually be able to call us from the Station on a phone and then once a week we will have a video conference and we will have a chance to hear from him and he can hear from us. The consol is actually at our kitchen so he can actually join the family at the kitchen table which is a fun place for us together as a family,” said Michelle.

Michelle also said that she will pray during the final countdown and so, probably, will most of the relatives and friends of those going into space. Though experts say there is really no need as they guarantee that it will be a 100% safe lift-off as the Russian-made Soyuz space vehicle is the safest in the world and boasts 1700 safe flights into orbit.