A British-born tycoon made history today as he became the first offspring of a Nasa astronaut to go into space.

Richard Garriott, 47, will dock tomorrow at the International Space Station, 225 miles above Earth, 35 years after his father Owen flew aboard one of Nasa’s last Apollo missions to Skylab, America’s first orbiting laboratory.

The multi-millionaire computer-game developer, who began his working life as a kitchen assistant at Burger King, blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today as a private passenger aboard a Soyuz capsule, having paid the Russian space agency $30 million for the privilege and undergone a year’s training.

He will be the only the second person to wear the Union flag in space; Helen Sharman, a chemist for Mars confectioners, was the first when she flew to Russia’s Mir space station on a privately arranged trip in 1991.

“I’m now feeling my British heritage a lot more than I used to, feeling proud of it. I hope British people will be proud of me too,” Mr Garriott told The Times as he prepared for his trip.

Mr Garriott, the sixth so-called “space tourist”, waved and gave the thumbs up to his parents, his siblings and his girlfriend as he was helped into his pressurised spacesuit five hours before launch.

“Thank you friends, thank you colleagues. I am ready,” he said in Russian during a final ceremony in which space officials paid tribute to him and his colleagues, US astronaut Mike Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov.

His father, now 77 and retired from Nasa, travelled with him to the launchpad before bidding farewell. He will monitor his son’s mission from Russian mission control, just outside Moscow.

“I grew up thinking my dad came late in the history of Nasa. Now I think, ‘hang on, that was 35 years ago,’ and suddenly I’m reflecting on that history,” said Mr Garriott.

“Now I have this deeper sense of pride, of understanding the important steps that were accomplished by astronauts like him in what was actually a pioneering era, and knowing that I’m a pioneer too.”

Fincke and Lonchakov will remain aboard the ISS for six months, while Mr Garriott will stay for just ten days. He will work through a busy schedule of educational ventures for schools, and scientific research that will include growing protein crystals in orbit to assist the development of future drug treatments for diseases, and studying the effects of zero-gravity spaceflight on the human immune system, bone density and spine.

Ironically, Mr Garriott, who was told by a Nasa doctor at the age of 12 that he would never be able to join the US space agency because he had an eyesight condition, will also perform a study on the space agency’s behalf that will aid future astronauts who have undergone treatment for the same problem, allowing them to pursue the kind of career that he was denied.

In a link-up with the British National Space Centre, he has also been set a number of challenges by schoolchildren around the country that he will carry out while in orbit to help illustrate important concepts in physics.

Tasks range from performing a rock ’n roll dance and blowing bubbles in space, to show the effects of zero-gravity, to demonstrating whether magnets remain magnetic in orbit.

Between studies, Mr Garriott will point his camera at the earth to snap high-resolution pictures of areas that his father photographed from space in 1973 and 1983, such as the Congo and the Amazon. “We will compare the images to show how the Earth has changed in just one generation,” he said.

Mr Garriott, who lives in a mock haunted house in Austin, Texas, made his fortune designing computer games including the popular Ultima series, in which he is depicted as Lord British, ruler of the kingdom of Britannia, and Tabula Rasa, in which mankind is threatened by an alien invasion.

“I’ve made my money from creating fantasy worlds, but space is the real world and we still know so little about it,” he said. “We need to be there, exploring, learning, understanding.”

His father said: “Because of my career, it was almost natural for Richard to be interested in space and exploration. I am so pleased that he is able to embrace this himself...I am very proud of him.”

His brother Robert, who also attended yesterday’s launch, said: “Richard has always wanted to do this. Power to him that he’s been able to accomplish one of his life’s goals.”

Last week Lord Drayson, the recently appointed Science Minister, suggested the Government might be about to end 40 years of British opposition to the funding of manned space flights.

“We have to recognise that putting people into space is an iconic science project that inspires people,” Lord Drayson said. “I want to see us put a Brit in space as part of that.”

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