'What a ride!' Space tourist and Russian cosmonauts return to Earth in 'flawless' landing



British-born space tourist Richard Garriott and his two Russian colleagues made a ‘flawless’ landing in Kazakhstan today, on their return from the International Space Station.



They avoided a string of mishaps that have plagued the Soyuz spacecraft on previous landings.





Blazing: The Soyuz capsule makes a fiery re-rentry into Earth's atmosphere

Cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko, as well as American space tourist Richard Garriott, said they were ‘feeling well’. They were extracted from the capsule by a Russian recovery team.

Mr Garriott, the U.S. video game guru, who paid £17 million for his 10-day jaunt looked elated after his trip.

'What a great ride that was,' said Garriott.



Sitting in an armchair and wrapped in a blue blanket against the near-freezing temperature on the steppe, he smiled broadly.

'Flawless' landing: Ground crew help U.S. space tourist Richard Garriott after the Soyuz capsule touches down

Prepared: Russian helicopters fly over Kazakh steppe on their way to Arkalik before the landing

'This is obviously a pinnacle experience,' he added.



The computer games tycoon was greeted by his father, Owen Garriott, a retired NASA astronaut who flew on the U.S. space station Skylab in 1973.

'Hey, Papa-san,' said Richard Garriott, 47 as the pair shook hands.



'How come you look so fresh and ready to go?' the 77-year-old asked.

Richard Garriott, here with ground crew members after the landing, is the world's sixth space tourist

'Because I'm fresh and ready to go - again,' his son replied smiling.

Farewell: Richard Garriott waves goodbye as he prepares for his $30 million trip to the International Space Station

Charred black from a blazing re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, the craft slowed its descent with a massive parachute and fired powerful gunpowder engines to cushion its landing.

It landed in a huge cloud of dust in a field 80 km (50 miles) north of the town of Arkalyk as planned.

A NASA Television live feed from mission control in Moscow described it as a flawless on-target landing.

This came as a huge relief to Russian and US officials as the capsule has manfunctioned twice over the past year – putting crew members through hazardous ‘ballistic’ re-entries.

Ballistic landings are extra steep and subject crews to massive gravitational forces. One astronaut reportedly feared death during such a landing earlier this year.

‘I don't recall such a perfect landing as this one,’ Anatoly Perminov, head of Russia's space agency Roskosmos, said in Moscow this morning.





