A software mogul's second space odyssey

BANGALORE: He is the software genius who helped build Microsoft and became one of its highest-ranking developers. He is the entrepreneur who left the software giant to float his own company, Intentional Software, in 2002. And above all, he is an amateur radio freak and a philanthropist.

Yes, there are quiet a few tags attached to American billionaire Charles Simonyi. But today he is in news for a totally different reason. He is roaring off into space aboard a Russian rocket to make history as the first space tourist to make the odyssey twice.

The space shuttle carrying the Hungarian-born software genius and two professional astronauts, a Russian and an American, will blast off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe at 7:49 p.m. EDT to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) two days later.

Simonyi had made his first space trip in 2007 and this time he has promised his wife Lisa Persdotter that he would not go to space again, though he would love to make moon trip.

"I cannot fly for the third time because I have just married and I have to spend time with my family," said 60-year-old Simonyi, who married 28-year-old Lisa in November.

One may wonder as to how can someone spend so much on such a trip even at this time of recession. But Simonyi is least bothered to shell out $35 million for this trip. He had paid more than $25 million for his first trip too. Mind it!

Simonyi is set to return to earth on April 7 along with Michael Fincke, U.S. commander of outgoing Expedition 18, and Russian flight engineer Yuri Lonchakov, who are at the international space station.

And how did a second trip come about?

“I gave a Russian-style party at Star City to all the instructors and friends there, and had a long discussion with Sergey Krikolov who is probably the most experienced spacefarer with more than 800 days and 6 trips in space,” he responded to a question on his website.

“He convinced me that the second trip is qualitatively different from the first, no wonder that the space organizations keep sending the same people to orbit. It is like just starting to learn how to ride the bicycle or already knowing how, the experience on the cycle would be completely different.”

Simonyi believes that “the 11 days on the station is quite sufficient for performing a number of experiments, talking to 6 schools and numerous other HAM operators as well.”

However, there are people who criticize him for wasting so much of money, that when the world is passing through tough times.

“It is a sad day in America when someone like you even has that much money to waste... it is apparent you do not appreciate the money you have or those struggling to make ends me on a daily basis. I have no respect for a person like you...” commented a person identified as Jennifer, on Simonyi's website.

But Simonyi has justification for this too. “The funds I am spending are helping the world’s space program that is generally funded by taxes on everyone,” he says.

“There are tens of thousands of people here in Russia, from highly qualified engineers, to technicians or laborers who keep humanity’s first outpost in space operational while working and living under very modest circumstances, especially by American standards. I think of them and what this money is doing for them when I go to sleep.”

And what do you think of this space odyssey? Experiment or extravagance?