Korolyov, Russia – An American billionaire who won a junior cosmonaut contest as a child returned Saturday from the international space station, riding to a soft landing on the Kazakh steppe.
Charles Simonyi, a 58-year- old native of Hungary who helped design Microsoft Word and Excel, smiled as rescuers helped him gingerly out of the Soyuz capsule and appeared energized by his $25 million, two-week trip.
The capsule carrying the space tourist, a Russian cosmonaut and a U.S. astronaut touched down after a more than three-hour return trip.
Simonyi looked delighted after rescuers helped him from the rounded capsule, which lay askew on the grassland, and into a chair covered with fur for warmth. He smiled, grinned broadly and spoke animatedly with members of a support crew who greeted him with hugs and handshakes.
He then bit enthusiastically into a green apple – a traditional offering for space crews touching down in Kazakhstan, famous for its tasty fruit.
Asked about his first impressions back on Earth, a smiling Simonyi said in Russian, “The sun is shining, the weather is good,” in footage broadcast on state television. Simonyi had studied Russian in school in his native Hungary and took another language course in preparation for the flight.
Cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin looked pale and tired. “The first thing I felt on Earth was the smell,” he told a TV network.
Spanish-born U.S. astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria sighed with relief and talked to the support crew.
