FYI,

"Two-Time Space Tourist Returns to Earth"
AFP
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090408/ts_alt_afp/russiausspace_20090408125622

: US millionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi shared a kiss with his
: wife in the Kazakh steppe after returning safely to Earth on
: Wednesday after an unprecedented second tour in orbit.

: Simonyi, who made his fortune pioneering Microsoft software, bumped
: back to Earth at 0715 GMT with two professional astronauts in the
: Russian Soyuz capsule, a spokesman for the mission control centre
: told AFP.

: "According to the search group, the space capsule landed in the
: planned area. All of the cosmonauts are feeling normal," a mission
: spokesman said in comments on Russia's Vesti 24 television.

: Travelling back to Earth with 60-year-old Simonyi -- the first
: person to travel into space twice as a tourist -- were Russian
: cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov and US astronaut Michael Fincke.

: "Here's the Earth!" Fincke cried repeatedly in Russian as the
: ground recovery team arrived, adding to NASA colleagues on the
: ground in English: "It's so nice to see you."

: Still in space suits and wrapped in blue thermal blankets, the crew
: were shown on live national television smiling and undergoing
: initial medical examinations from deck chairs set out in the field
: by the landing site.

: Hungarian-born Simonyi, who paid 35 million dollars (28 million
: euros) for his 10-day space tour, was seen receiving a warm embrace
: from his 29-year-old Swedish wife, Lisa Persdotter, who travelled
: by helicopter to the site.

: His return to Earth from the International Space Station had been
: pushed back by a day after the initial landing site was found to be
: unsuitable, reportedly due to boggy ground.

: But the crew was spared the hours-long wait that other Soyuz
: missions have undergone after those landings went off course and
: recovery teams scrambled to reach them in the vast Central Asian
: steppe near Baikonour Cosmodrome.

: Search groups "were able to discover the craft while it was still
: at a height of 1,000 meters" (3,280 feet), cheered Alexander
: Verednikov, deputy head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos.

: Roskosmos head Anatoly Perminov dubbed the 18th ISS mission "very
: productive, energetic."

: "This is what sustained the good health of the crew during the
: flight... The mission fulfilled all its assignments and carried out
: many important scientific experiments," he added at a joint press
: conference with NASA officials.

: "I want to congratulate the entire team. I think we learned today
: how to keep our astronauts healthy and looking good on Earth," a
: NASA official responded.

: Perminov confirmed, however, that Simonyi was likely the agency's
: last space tourist for some time.

: Asked if Russia intended to stop accommodating space tourists, he
: replied: "Yes, unfortunately." Any future resumption of the
: programme would depend on requirements for servicing the ISS.

: Space on Soyuz launches is set to become tight when the number of
: crew routinely aboard the ISS doubles from three to six next month
: and after the United States suspends its own missions to the
: station from 2010.

: Russia's space tourism partnership with US company Space
: Adventures, which also organised Simonyi's début trio in
: April 2007, has provided a welcome boost to funding for its space
: programme since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Mark Reiff