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My Trip In Space

 

Mark Shuttleworth

Mark Shuttleworth, besides having the perfect last name for a space traveler, was the first African in space and the second paying space tourist in history. Mark Shuttleworth made his fortune as an Internet tycoon in the 1990's and on April 25, 2002 made history by flying aboard a Russian Soyuz TM34 capsule as a cosmonaut to the International Space Station (ISS). He paid Space Adventures a reported $20 million for the flight.

Not wanting to be saddled with the moniker of "tourist," Shuttleworth completed several experiments while on his 8-day stay upon the ISS.

The whole adventure lasted 10 days. The experiments Shuttleworth worked on include human genome and AIDS research.

Mark Shuttleworth's father had commented that one of the most difficult parts of the trip for Mark was adhering to the strict regimen that astronauts and cosmonauts must follow. Only 28-years-old at the time of his journey, Mark Shuttleworth had spent seven months of formal training for the mission at Star City in Russia and one week in Houston at the NASA Johnson Space Center.

During the three-hour return trip from space, Mark Shuttleworth told reporters about metal melting outside the windows during reentry. He also stated that the reportedly "soft landing" was really a silly euphemism and that no landing could be expected to be soft when one is a fireball falling out of the sky at 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Approximately 15 minutes before landing, a parachute deployed and then just before touching down a set of braking rockets fired that helped with the "soft landing." Upon returning to Kazakhstan, Shuttleworth was surrounded by space personal, medical experts and many journalist hurling questions. Borat was noticeable absent at this point.

Mark Shuttleworth made his mega-millions by founding Thawte in 1995, a digital certificate and encryption company that promoted online shopping and turning around and selling it to VeriSign in 1999 for $575 million. From there Shuttleworth went on to found HBD Venture Capital with HBD standing for "Here Be Dragons," a reference to the maps of early world explorers.

Mr. Shuttleworth also founded The Shuttleworth Foundation, a non-profit organization that funds educational improvement projects in Africa. Living now in London, Mark Shuttleworth is also heavily involved in the Ubuntu Project that has a goal of producing a robust desktop and server-side operating system that is free for all to use.



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