Space docking complete
KOROLYOV, Russia — A Russian Soyuz craft docked with the international space station today, delivering an American computer game designer and two crew mates to the orbital outpost after a flawless flight from Earth.
The Soyuz TMA-13 latched onto the station automatically a few minutes ahead of schedule, two days after blasting off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
After the hatches were opened 90 minutes later, paying space traveler Richard Garriott floated onto the station behind Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov and U.S. astronaut Michael Fincke. All three were greeted with hugs from the current crew members.
Garriott, 47, paid a reported $30 million to fulfill his childhood dream of space travel and is to spend 10 days on the station.
Garriott is the first American to follow a parent into space. His father, Owen, made two trips to space in the 1970s and 1980s.
Owen Garriott, 77, smiled and joined the applause at Mission Control after the successful docking.
Fincke and Lonchakov will replace the station's current crew and spend several months in orbit.
Garriott will return to Earth on Oct. 24 with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Sergei Volkov, who have been on the station since April.
Volkov was the first person to follow a parent into space. His father, Alexander, a decorated cosmonaut from the Soviet era, also watched the docking today.
The United States and Russia often point to the space program as an example of cooperation in their otherwise rocky relationship, which reached a low point in August when Russia defeated Georgia, a U.S. ally, in a brief war.
