By Country / Russia
Third Tourist Reaches Space Station
October 03, 2005
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3 October 2005 (RFE/RL) -- A Russian Soyuz spacecraft has successfully docked today at the International Space Station (ISS).
The Soyuz is delivering a new long-term Russian-U.S. crew for the space station, as well as
American businessman Gregory Olsen, who is visiting as a tourist.
Olsen, who paid an estimated $20 million for the trip, is due to return to earth next week on a Russian spacecraft with the outgoing crew of the space station, Russian Sergei Krikalev and American John Phillips.
Olsen is the world's third private citizen to pay for a trip into space.
The new crew of William McArthur of the U.S. and Valerii Tokarev of Russia are to spend six months on the orbiting space station.
The Soyuz blasted off on 1 October from theBaikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
(AP/Reuters)