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Tito's dream within reach
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IT'S become official on April 23: California millionaire Dennis Tito will blast off tomorrow as the world's first tourist in space.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has grudgingly signed off on his controversial launch on Saturday aboard a Russian rocket to the international space station, whose arrival is set for April 30.
An agreement governing the terms of his flight was ratified during a teleconference that morning between all of the programme's international partners.
Tito approved the deal last week at Russia's cosmonaut training centre outside Moscow after being presented with legal documents by NASA astronaut Bill McArthur.
"Mr Tito signed a document of just over one page in which NASA withdraws its objections to his flight to the international space station and grants him limited access to the United States' portions," said Kim Shepherd, a spokeswoman for Tito, in a phone interview from Moscow. "He has released them from any liability and holds them harmless should he have any problems while he's up there."
There could be agreement on safety precautions and liability questions by Tuesday, according to Debbie Rahn, who deals with international issues at the NASA.
Tito, 60, a multimillionaire California businessman and former NASA employee, has paid about US$20 million to ride a Russian Soyuz space taxi to the station.Tito said he was the "happiest man in the world". Tito's wife, his two sons and his daughter are also due to travel to Baikonur to see off the "first space tourist".
Tito is due to return to Earth, landing in the desert of Kazakhstan, on May 6.
A NASA team in Russia has been working daily to resolve questions about Tito's mission, another NASA spokesman said.
After weeks of balking at Tito's scheduled flight to the station, NASA chief Daniel Goldin acknowledged last week that the American tourist was scheduled to blast off from Kazakhstan tomorrow, and that the station would be ready for him.
"Safety is our number one objective; respect among the partners is a part of safety,'' Goldin said. "We are very systematically working at the professional level and expect before the launch of Mr Tito all these issues will be resolved."
Tito originally contracted to fly Soyuz to the Soviet-vintage Mir space station. When the aging Mir was deemed unsafe and brought to a controlled descent in the South Pacific earlier this year, plans were switched to put Tito on the international station, in which Russia is a partner.
Tensions over Tito's voyage boiled over in March, when his two Russian Soyuz crew mates walked out of preflight training at Johnson Space Centre in Houston when Tito was barred from participating. They eventually returned to the training programme, and the three-man crew are set for launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Russian space officials have repeatedly said Tito is fit to make the trip, while the US and other space agency officials maintained he could distract the station crew and did not know emergency procedures for the US sectors of the craft.
Their 10-day mission will involve a two-day flight to the orbiting station, where they will spend the next seven days. One task will be to exchange their new Soyuz for an aging one that has been at the station for nearly six months, and a two-day flight back to Earth. They will spend nearly a week aboard the station, which is under construction.
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