Space tourist returns to Earth
Updated on 24 October 2008
A Soyuz capsule carrying a Russian-American crew including a British-born space tourist has touched down on target in Kazakhstan after a descent from the international space station, safely delivering the first two men to follow their fathers into space.
Russian Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said the Soyuz TMA-12 capsule landed at 0337GMT about 55 miles north of Arkalyk in north-central Kazakhstan.
Search and recovery crews extracted Richard Garriott, Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko from the capsule.
Mr Garriott was greeted by his father, Owen Garriott, a retired Nasa astronaut who flew on the US space station Skylab in 1973.
Mr Volkov, the son of a cosmonaut, beat Richard Garriott as the first to follow a parent into space when he flew up to the space station six months ago.
Richard Garriott, a computer game designer who was born in the UK, paid around 30 million US dollars for the 10-day trip.
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