Cosmonaut Garriott In Training

Origin founder Richard Garriott is now working hard in Russia to complete his rigorous cosmonaut training course. His backup, Nik Halik joined him in February and they continue to count down to launch. So far Richard is on track to become the world's sixth space tourist this fall. Here are some pictures from space camp and one of his recent journal entries.

I am quite excited to be in training now and I look forward to all aspects that it will entail, but I am particularly enthusiastic to be here in Star City, as a resident, with its amazing history of space exploration. I’m honored to surround myself with its people and I am determined to learn as much as I possibly can, inside and outside the classroom...

We covered stabilization planes in our class on Wednesday. As you might expect, distributing weight and positioning thrusters is a big deal, but I won’t go into all the boring engineering and mechanical details. That night we had chicken curry over at the NASA cottages and I chatted with “ShREC” Greg Chamitoff, who will be onboard the station during my visit, about my Protein Crystal Growth (PCG) experiments and our mutual interest in magic. That night I had my first space-related dream. I don’t remember ever having had one before!

Thursday, we bussed over to Energia, the rocket manufacturer, to discuss my experiment plans. It was a very interesting meeting, with Nik and I sitting opposite a board of Energia managers. Fortunately, they seemed very interested in my plans, coming back with some great questions and comments about the PCG work I hope to do. Plus their main ham manager was the grandson of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, considered the father of human space flight. He was very excited to meet and discuss ham activities, plus also offered to personally show me the space museum in Kaluga, which I hear has many fine examples related to the beginnings of the space era. I hope to go this summer.

On Friday, we covered the exterior of the Soyuz: radio-antenna locations, docking procedures, the periscope, TV viewers, that kind of thing. But most importantly, we covered the reentry and how the bell-shaped craft can actually be “flown” to decrease the g-loads and land at a more exact location. If all goes according to plan, we’ll have a smooth ride and land right where the helicopters will be expecting us!

With our week’s studying and meetings completed, we relaxed this weekend by catching a children’s circus here at Star City, plus managed to get into Moscow for some shopping, eating, and even a night out! After all our hard work this week, we deserved it, right?