By Mike Eckel
The Associated Press
Baikonur, Kazakhstan – U.S. millionaire scientist Gregory Olsen and an American-Russian crew hurtled toward the international space station Saturday on a Soyuz craft in a journey his family said was motivated by a devotion to science.
Relatives and friends of Olsen, astronaut William McArthur and cosmonaut Valery Tokarev gasped as the Russian craft lifted off in a burst of flame from the Baikonur cosmodrome and soared into the bright autumn sky over the steppes of Kazakhstan.
As the announcement came that the spacecraft had entered its initial designated orbit nine minutes after the launch, the crowd burst into applause.
The crew reported that all was well aboard the Soyuz TMA-7 capsule, which will rendezvous on Monday with the station floating some 250 miles above the Earth.
However, Russian space officials injected a sour note, warning that they could not guarantee McArthur’s return next spring unless NASA pays for the flight.
Since the 2003 Columbia disaster grounded the U.S. shuttle fleet, the United States has depended on Russian Soyuz and Progress craft to ferry its astronauts and supplies to the space station. Discovery visited the station in July, but problems with the foam insulation on its external fuel tank cast doubt on when the shuttle will fly again.
U.S. law currently bars NASA from making such payments to Russia.
Soyuz spacecraft make twice-yearly missions to the station to deliver new crews.
McArthur and Tokarev are replacing Russian Sergei Krikalev and American John Phillips, who will return to Earth on Oct. 11, along with Olsen, a 60-year-old founder of an infrared-camera maker based in Princeton, N.J. He reportedly paid $20 million for a seat on the Expedition 12 flight.
