The Russian manned spaceship Soyuz, with three passengers from Russia and the United States on board, docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday.

U.S. space tourist Richard Garriott (L), Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov (C) and U.S. astronaut Michael Fincke pose after putting on spacesuits at Baikonur cosmodrome October 12, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

The Soyuz TMA-13 was launched from the Baikonur space center, Kazakhstan, on Sunday and was designated to send into the ISS Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov, NASA astronaut Michael Fincke and American tourist Richard Garriott.

Garriott, son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott and a computer game developer, will stay in the ISS for ten days and return to Earth together with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononeko and Sergei Volkov who has completed their mission on the station.

Owen watched the docking from Russian Mission Control outside Moscow, and Volkov was also a second generation cosmonaut who followed his father, a decorated cosmonaut in the Soviet era.

The 18th ISS crew members Lonchakov and Fincke will continue their mission together with NASA’s Gregory Chamitoff in the ISS.

There have been so far six paid visitors to the ISS since California businessman Dennis Tito became the world’s first space tourist in May 2001 at a price of 20 million U.S. dollars, or 1,800 dollars per minute, for an eight-day trip.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet