Richard Garriott

UK-born son of ex-NASA astronaut W5LFL to travel in space

This Week In Amateur Radio (TWIAR) has spotted a report in The Hindu that the son of former NASA Astronaut and Radio Amateur Owen Garriott W5LFL may soon fly in space.

Owen Garriott W5LFL was the first licenced Radio Amateur to make a ham radio contact from space during Space Shuttle mission STS-9 which was launched on November 28, 1983.

From The Hindu - Kin of ex-NASA astronaut to travel in space (Amateur Radio callsigns added) original text at:
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/
003200709300339.htm

Moscow, Sept. 30 (PTI): Son of former NASA astronaut, Owen K Garriott W5LFL, will travel into space on board the Russian segment of International Space Station (ISS).

UK-born, Richard Garriott, developer of the Ultima computer game series, will be the sixth tourist to travel to the ISS on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft for a week-long space venture holiday in 2008.

Astronaut Owen Garriot during STS-9 training with Ham Radio he will operate during the mission. Credit: NASA Johnson Space Center

He had bought a voucher of US$20 million from a US-based space tourism agent involved in global marketing for the Russian Space Agency, according to RIA Novosti.

Dennis Tito KG6FZX, an American business person and former NASA scientist was the first space tourist who visited the ISS in 2001.

Tito was followed by South African IT millionaire Mark Shuttleworth (2002), Gregory Olsen KC2ONX, a US entrepreneur/scientist in 2005, Anousheh Ansari (NA1SS) (40), an American citizen of Iranian origin and a telecommunications business person in 2006 and Charles Simonyi KE7KDP (58), a US citizen of Hungarian descent who had a key role in developing MS Word and Excel applications in 2007.

Meanwhile, Russia has said that the price for commercial space flights would go up from US$ 20 million to US$ 25 million.

RIA Novosti - Russian State News Agency
http://en.rian.ru/

Ham Radios in Space
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast21aug_1.htm

Owen Garriott - W5LFL
http://www.aa5tb.com/w5lfl.html

Dennis Tito - Hearing on Space Tourism
http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/
hearing_on_space_tourism_testimony_by_dennis_tito.shtml

Space Tourist Shuttleworth Surprises US Hams
http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2002/05/02/1/

Astronaut Anousheh Ansari - ham radio operator speaks with space station
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?i
d=852560db-b97c-4565-afaf-01a1ca1e4fce&k=82481

This Week in Amateur Radio
http://www.twiar.org/

Radio Society of Great Britain
http://www.rsgb.org/

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