$20 Million Space Tour Launches Today
By MIKE ECKEL, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan – Gregory Olsen, the millionaire scientist from Somerset County, bid farewell to his family Friday during final preparations for his flight to the international space station with a Russian-American crew.
The 60-year-old founder of an infrared-camera maker based in Princeton reportedly paid $20 million for a seat on the Expedition 12 flight.
Olsen, who lives in Montgomery Township, holds advanced degrees in physics and materials science. He defended his presence in the capsule as a necessary step in the evolution of space travel.
"I would hope that my flight would help, if just to make space flight more routine," Olsen said.
"One hundred years ago, airline flight was reserved for only a few brave souls. Everyone flies nowadays. The same will be true of space flight."
The Russian-built Soyuz rocket was fueled on Friday and was scheduled to blast off today from a launch pad in Kazakhstan’s barren steppes.
The cash-strapped Russian Federal Space Agency has turned to space tourism to generate money. Olsen is the third non-astronaut to visit the station: California businessman Dennis Tito paid about $20 million for a weeklong trip to the space station in 2001, and South African Mark Shuttleworth followed a year later.
Olsen made his fortune on optic inventions. He is the co-founder of Sensors Unlimited Inc., a company that makes infrared imaging cameras and fiber-optic communications components.
At a preflight news conference with cosmonaut Valery Tokarev and astronaut William McArthur, Olsen said he preferred the term "space flight participant" to "space tourist."
"-’Tourism’ implies that anyone can just write a check and go up there. That’s not what happened," he said.
Olsen’s flight was pushed back after Russian doctors found an unspecified medical ailment that since has been cleared up. He was cleared for flight in May.
Asked by a reporter how his health was, Olsen replied, "This has been two years of very hard work. In 20 hours, I will feel very, very good.
"All I have to do is to talk to my 4-year-old grandson, Justin," he said. "That’s all the mental preparation I need."
McArthur, a retired Army colonel, has made three space shuttle flights, including one to the Russian space station Mir. He said he had no doubts about the safety of the Soyuz TMA-7 capsule.
After blasting off from the Baikonur cosmodrome, the spacecraft will rendezvous in two days with the station floating 250 miles above the Earth. Olsen, Tokarev and McArthur will bring cargo aboard and perform experiments.
The station’s current inhabitants, Russian Sergei Krikalev and American John Phillips, arrived in April and are scheduled to return with Olsen on Oct. 11, touching down in Kazakhstan.
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