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U.S. Billionaire Heads to Space Station

Posted by samzenpus on from the now-that's-an-expensive-hotel dept.

TurnAround writes "According to an International Business Times article, a Russian rocket carrying the American billionaire who helped develop Microsoft Word roared into the night skies over Kazakhstan Saturday, sending Charles Simonyi and two cosmonauts soaring into orbit on a two-day journey to the international space station. Climbing on a column of smoke and fire into the clouds over the bleak steppes, the Soyuz TMA-10 capsule lifted off at 11:31 p.m. local time, casting an orange glow over the Baikonur cosmodrome and dozens of officials and well-wishers watching from about a mile away."

4 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Harsh by cyber-vandal · · Score: 5, Funny

    Word drives me insane sometimes but surely firing him into space for it was a bit OTT.

  2. Re:Lets hope... by julesh · · Score: 5, Funny

    Would we get to autorecover a version of Simonyi at age 8?

  3. Re:Does it piss anyone else off that.... by lgarner · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not at all. First, "While at the space station, Simonyi will be conducting a number of experiments, including measuring radiation levels and studying biological organisms inside the lab."

    Second, I don't see anything indicating that the US directly paid for the launch. If the Russians want to collect some money to help pay for this thing, then fine. I don't see why the US doesn't do the same- that could have meant $25million fewer of your tax dollars going into the ISS.

  4. Ahhh, ground control this is Major Simonyi by presidenteloco · · Score: 5, Funny


    We're experiencing loss of document format stability up here....

    We just changed from the small platform to the larger one.

    I don't understand what happened to the document.

    I'm pulling off the access panel now. Seems to be a whole ratsnest of old embedded
    OLE objects in there. Christ that's some ugly HTML.

    Sproing! What the hell just happened to my paragraph format?? Oh my god, we have a backward compatibility failure!

    Somebody open the hatch, quick! Open it! what do you mean there are two different opening standards!

    Ahhhhhhhh!, We're losing all design integrity here. There are so many buttons. Don't know which ones to push......
    Mayday, Mayday,

    (Sure hope I land on my money pile. Oh, Sh***t)

    --

    Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?