2009: Simonyi to Make 2nd Commercial Spaceflight in March

Billionaire Hungarian-American software engineer and private spaceflight veteran Charles Simonyi will be making his second Russian Soyuz spaceflight to the growing International Space Station on March 25, 2009 as a commercial spaceflight participant (tourist) [video]. His first spaceflight was in the spring of 2007.

The Soyuz TMA-14 be the final flight of a space tourist to the International Space Station. With the retirement of the Space Shuttle and the extension of the crew of the station to six crew members, all Soyuz crew positions in the foreseeable future should be occupied by the long duration Expedition crews.

Esther Dyson, the daughter of physicist Freeman Dyson and mathematician Verena Huber-Dyson, and sister to digital technology historian George Dyson is training as the back-up crew member for Simonyi [video].