by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

For eight years, they thundered aloft in cramped Russian spacecraft from a former Soviet spaceport in Kazakhstan, battling bureaucracy and gravity to blaze a trail across the heavens and redefine what it meant to be a space traveler. No longer would access to orbit be limited to highly trained astronauts chosen on merit and working on behalf of their nations; instead, space would be open to any sufficiently healthy people with enough money and moxie to qualify.

SA PR — Space Adventures’ sixth orbital spaceflight client, Richard Garriott, flew to the International Space Station in October 2008 and became the first second generation American astronaut. Man on a Mission is the story of his journey from son of an Apollo astronaut to famed computer game developer to finally achieving his lifelong dream of flying to space himself. Check for on-demand providers or for a movie theater near […]

Father and son astronauts Owen and Richard Garriott speak at the 2011 National Space Society International Space Development Conference. Owen Garriott spent 60 days aboard Skylab in 1973 and 10 days aboard the Space Shuttle in Spacelab-1 in 1983. His son Richard Garriott is a video game developer and entrepreneur who funded his own 12-day trip flying on Soyuz to the International Space Station in 2008. This talk was given […]

Richard Garriott

An estimated 140 private individuals will travel into orbit on a commercial basis through 2020, according to a new market forecast done by Space Adventures.

Officials from the Virginia-based space tourism company held a press conference on Thursday to explain their results and to provide an update on the company’s planned circum-lunar flyby. Space Adventures Chairman Eric Anderson and board member Richard Garriott discussed the results of their survey, which was done at the request of NASA, Boeing and other companies.

Over the past decade, seven private space tourists — including Garriott — flew to the International Space Sstation on eight missions (one man flew twice). Space Adventures expect orbital space tourism to increase substantially over the next decade as new private vehicles come online to challenge Russia’s monopoly on space tourism.

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Space Adventures Hosts Tele-conference to Announce Circumlunar Mission Developments and Market Outlook for Orbital Spaceflight WHAT: As we celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Dennis Tito’s pioneering orbital spaceflight, please join Eric Anderson and Richard Garriott as they outline the future of private exploration and announce new developments regarding the company’s circumlunar mission. Space Adventures, the only company that has provided human space missions to the global marketplace, became world […]

Gamesutra reports that millionaut Richard Garriott is assisting John Carmack and Armadillo Aerospace in its efforts to develop a human suborbital business: As far as the future of space travel, Garriott sees it coming from the private sector, notably John Carmack of id Software, with his company Armadillo Aerospace. “His next stage is to be able to send people into space on a vertical takeoff vertical landing orbit,” said Garriott, […]

A not-so-positive review of Richard “Lord British” Garriott’s Man on a Mission documentary that chronicled his space tourism trip to the International Space Station.

Millionaut Richard Garriott explains how astronauts go the bathroom in space.

PRESS RELEASE

An historic 12-day journey to space by legendary game developer and space explorer Richard Garriott will have its world premiere at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin. Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission is set to blast off with two screenings at the 2010 conference. The first will be 1:30 pm on Sunday, March 14 at Austin’s Paramount Theater and the second will be Thursday, March 18, at 2:30, also at the Paramount.

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Richard Garriott

At home with Richard Garriott, the talk is all about space
The Statesman

As for Garriott, his latest dream is to catch a ride in one of those suborbital vehicles — and then step off. “Which means space diving,” he said.

He’s working with a number of groups to develop the technology to do it, and survive. One of the problems with space diving, he said, is that once you hit the atmosphere, you’re traveling at speeds of about Mach 5, which means that the airflow might shred your spacesuit.

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