Mission Accomplished!

Origin founder Richard Garriott's mission to space has been well documented in the CIC news archives, but a whole lot more people are learning about the story thanks to the premiere of the Man on a Mission documentary about the trip. Rather than just a vanity film to commemorate his space tourism, the story has been highly-rated as an excellent adventure about a man realizing his dream to become the first second-generation astronaut. There are a handful of streaming options for fans who'd like to check it out, and theatrical premieres across the country are taking place now. The streaming rentals run about $7, and eventually it'll be sold in digital format for about $15. Richard will be attending another showing in person at the Austin Alamo Village theater on Thursday, February 2!

Austinites! Join me, the film crew, Portalarium staff, and my mother at Man in a Mission at the Alamo Village Premier Thursday night!

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Garriott’s father was the first astronaut to take a ham radio into space and talk with people on the ground below, including his sons. In a further closing of the cycle, the younger Garriott is shown talking to his father from orbit via ham radio. In another bit of torch-passing, Garriott used a newly developed software program that enabled him to take the same pictures of areas of Earth that his father did aboard Skylab, thus depicting any changes which had occurred in a generation.

While he might have missed out on becoming the first space tourist, Garriott can still take solace in the fact that he was the first second-generation American to follow a parent into space. In an odd coincidence, he shared his capsule for the return to earth with Sergei Volkov, the first second-generation space traveler. When the capsule made its bumpy landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan it was greeted by the recovery crew (a very casual, commonplace seeming event), and both the elder cosmonaut and astronaut were on hand to greet their space-faring progeny.

As for the movie, for those would-be astronauts lacking tens of millions of dollars to go through the process and make the flight themselves, experiencing it through Garriott’s eyes is the next best thing.