AN American scientist turned businessman blasted off on an 11-day trip into space yesterday aboard a Russian rocket after paying a reported $20m for his ticket, writes Peter Conradi.

Gregory Olsen, 60, the co-founder of a New Jersey-based infrared camera company, is the third fare-paying passenger to travel to the International Space Station under a deal arranged between Russia’s Federal Space Agency and Space Adventures, a private company in Virginia.

Olsen, who has advanced degrees in physics and material sciences, will carry out three medical experiments during his time on the station. He has rejected a description of himself as a “space tourist” — instead he calls himself a “space participant”.

“Tourism implies that anyone can just write a cheque and go up there. That’s not what happened,” Olsen said in an interview before the Soyuz TMA-7 carrying him and two professional astronauts — one American and one Russian — lifted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.

Olsen’s daughter, Krista Dibsie, 31, videoed the launch, craning her head skyward as tears rolled down her cheeks. Justin, her four-year-old son, held his hands over his ears. More than 20 other friends, relatives and employees of Olsen’s company, Sensors Unlimited, stood nearby.

“There goes dad,” Dibsie said quietly.

“Now I’m nervous for him. I wasn’t before but now he’s up there and, gosh, he’s out of this world. I know that’s a corny thing to say, but I can’t believe it.”

The Soyuz craft is due to dock with the space station in the early hours of tomorrow morning. While Olsen will return on October 11, his fellow crewmen, William McArthur, a three-time veteran of American shuttle flights, and Valery Tokarev, the Soyuz commander, will remain on the station for six months.

Olsen’s flight was first announced in March last year, but his training was suspended for medical reasons a month later. He resumed training in May this year.

Olsen follows Dennis Tito, an American millionaire businessman, who went into space in 2001, and Mark Shuttleworth, a young South African internet tycoon, who followed a year later.

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