"Soyuz". You will arrive at the International Space Station on Monday
The "Soyuz" spacecraft was successfully launched this morning (Saturday) to the International Space Station, at the prearranged time. Before that, it was reported that NASA asked the Russian space agency to delay the launch by two days, since it wanted to extend the mission of the American space shuttle "Endeavour", after a computer failure prevented a test of a robotic arm installed on the station. The Russian spacecraft carries the "first space tourist" - the American Dennis Tito.
The Russian space agency said that an agreement was reached with NASA according to which if the shuttle Endeavor is still connected to the International Space Station when Soyuz arrives, the Russian spacecraft will wait in space until Endeavor leaves the station. The rocket carrying the spacecraft took off from the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan.
Tito, 60 years old, is an aeronautical engineer by training and a former employee of NASA (the American space agency). He paid Russia twenty million for the flight to the International Space Station. He is supposed to arrive at the station on Monday and stay there for six days. His time in space, including round-trip flights, is ten days.
At the beginning of the week, NASA, Japan and the European and Canadian Space Agency, with apparent reluctance, agreed to Tito's visit to the space station. This is after they managed to get Russia to commit that the Russian cosmonauts who will fly with him, Yuri Baturin and Talegat Mosaev, will follow Tito's steps in the station carefully.
Tito's stay will also be limited to the Russian region. It should also be noted that if Tito causes any damage to the station, he will have to cover all the repair costs.
NASA's reasons are mainly safety and organizational. According to the agency, at this stage, a visit by an untrained person could harm the safety of the astronauts building the station and also the safety of Tito himself. Tito's critics say that the American tycoon bought his way into space without considering the progress of the station's construction.
Tito was supposed to fly to the Russian space station Mir. But after the Russians stopped Mir's operation last month and crashed it in the ocean, Tito changed his flight destination to the International Space Station.
NASA sent Tito a request to delay his visit to a later date. But Tito refused. He justified his refusal by saying that "I dreamed about it for so long...there are things that when you want to do them, you simply have to do them."
