Journey out of this world 4:49

Space Adventures client Richard Garriott discusses space tourism and his plans to visit the International Space Station.

Every kid wants to fly in space, right? Well, if that kid happens to have a dad who's an astronaut who's been to space, that dream gets solidified. But it's amazing how fate and life can give you a twist and turn, and your path to space may not be exactly what you have anticipated. Richard Garriott is case in point on that. His father Owen flew to/ Skylab in 1973, flew on the Shuttle about ten years later, [That's right.] and he went off and made a fortune with the video game business. [Exactly.] Tell us briefly about that.

Yeah, I'm actually one of the earliest members of the club, so to speak, I was making games since the late 1970s and it grew to a company. [Wow, it's like punch card or something like that.] And I, my first games on schools was a paper tape. [Wow, wow.] Exactly.

So you did well on that business but you always had this dream to go to space, and tell me how that changed the way you invested, and how it led you to what you're doing right now.

Well, throughout my career, even though I was generating my income in the business of computer games, all of my personal investing has been in the privatization of space. So I've been literately through my whole career trying to find ways to open up space travel for more than just governments, and for private individuals, of course, thinking of myself as a principal on that list.

Right, and so you found Space Adventures, this company which you now are a customer, it’s one of those with their victor client like it so much about the company, that kind of thing. [Exactly right.] What is it about Space Adventures that you think is going to be a good solid return on the investment.

Well, I think that the key issue is, I think it's been proven through the ten years that Space Adventures is now under its belt, is good planning and good management. You know it's one thing to dream of going to space and theorize about wouldn't it be fun if, but putting together natural business plan with the appropriate steps to succeed all the parts and pieces that have to come together to make it happen, to make it realizable, and simultaneously find the clients who're willing to buy the products and services at these, as you know, pretty high prices is a very tough thing to put together, and they've shown the vision to do that.

Well, when you're talking between 20 and 30 million a ticket, it's a niche market, to say the least. Now you invested several million dollars, [Right.] and you feel pretty confident you're gonna get a good return in the end?

Well, no question. Although, you know, to be honest, my original investment was an, what we'd call, an investment of passion, trying to open up this frontier on the part of, you know, humanity in general but myself selfishly in specific. However, I then, you know, hope that I'm also, that that money is not squandered, and very fortunately it really does appear that, you know, Space Adventures for ten years now has built a growing, inspiring business that looks very well poised for the future.

You are set to be the sixth space tourist, space participant, whatever you wanna call it, you probably don't like the term tourist. I know you've got a lot of things planned that are not at all like tourism, including a lot of scientific experiments happens in October. Tell us a little bit about the training, is it what you anticipated? Is it harder either? The Russian training is supposed to be pretty rigorous.

It is, in fact, you know before I went out there, it was going like what I'm going to do for 9 months of training. And I was going like what's * of me to participate in this way, I didn't think it would be that great. As soon as I got there and began the training, I was going like, Oh man, I have underestimated what I really need to know in order to participate and not just feel comfortable and safe and a contributing member of the team, so to speak. But also especially if you want to do what like I do, you want to do some actual science and research activities, there is really a lot to learn, so the Soyuz and the International Space Station are very complex machines, there is a lot to learn to operate there safely.

Do you feel pretty confident about the Soyuz? The Soyuz that you'll ride a whole month, latched on the International Space Station very likely has the same fundamental problems which led to some couple of scary landings, the last couple of landings. You don't have time to get into the technical details but there were some issues as to whether it's separated at the right time, and that led to a, what they call ballistic entry which means more G-loads for the crew. It's not necessarily unsafe; it's just that you'd want to know why that all happen. Are you, you feel it's a safe way to go touring from space?

There is no question. I mean, the Soyuz has a 30-year track record of safety, which in this industry is forever. And so just the statistic can bear out that it's a, you know, for doing something that's frankly not safe, this is about a safer way as you can, you know, can approach a relatively hazardous undertaking. But the, you know, the engineering on the Soyuz as you mentioned is so good they’ve got backups to backups to backups, and in fact the ballistic reentries we've seen here on the last two are in fact still considered a normal reentry. It's, it's not, that on itself is not considered anything particularly endangering.

Well, either way, I'm sure it will be a landing to remember. Richard Garriott, who are in October if all goes well will be the first second generation astronaut to fly to space. Thank you, good luck and, as they say, Godspeed.

Thank you Miles.