The Soyuz capsule carrying Simonyi, 58, and two crew members from the International Space Station, Mikhail Tyurin of Russia and American Miguel Lopez-Alegria, touched down as planned in the steppes of Kazakhstan, a spokesman for Russia's space centre said. Television pictures showed Simonyi smiling and looking relaxed as he lay on the grass of the steppe, his space helmet off, enjoying the sunshine. "It was terrific," he told the Vesti 24 channel in English. "It's good to be back on Earth." The former Microsoft whizz kid who made his fortune helping develop the company's Word and Excel software broke the record for space tourists by spending 14 days in space. The lift-off on April 7 from the Baikonur launchpad drew more than the usual attention as he received a cosmic bon voyage from US homemaking queen Martha Stewart, fuelling the rampant romantic gossip about the couple.
Stewart was not in Kazakhstan for the landing back on Earth, a spokesman in Moscow for Space Adventures, which organises the multi-million-dollar excursions.
Simonyi, who left his native Hungary at the age of 17 for the United States, was the fifth tourist to travel to the ISS, following Dennis Tito (2001) and Greg Olsen (2005) of the United States, South Africa's Mark Shuttleworth (2002) and an American of Iranian origin, Anousheh Ansari (2006). Space Adventures plans to expand its offerings next year to include a 100-million-dollar orbit of the moon and a 100,000-dollar budget option: five minutes of sub-orbital space flight. Eric Andersen, boss of Space Adventures, said when Simonyi took off that the company had another client for a flight this year who would go public within a few months.
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