RUSSIA: A young South African millionaire blasted off on a tourist trip in space yesterday.There were tears from his mother and cheers from countrymen, who hailed him as the world's first "Afronaut".
"I'm not nervous. I'm ready," Mr Mark Shuttleworth (28) told Russian officials as he clambered into a white space suit before launch from Russia's Baikonur space base in Kazakhstan.
The Soyuz carrying Mr Shuttleworth, a Russian space veteran, Mr Yuri Gidzenko, and an Italian pilot, Mr Roberto Vittori, to the International Space Station blasted off on schedule.
Mr Shuttleworth, an Internet entrepreneur whose ticket cost a reported $20 million, is the second amateur cosmonaut to pay his way into space. A US businessman, Mr Dennis Tito, visited the space station a year ago.
Watching from the viewing platform as the Soyuz roared into a blue sky were Mr Shuttleworth's parents and two brothers.
His mother, Ronelle, wiped away tears during the final countdown. Earlier she said: "I'm sure he's going to have a wonderful time. I'll worry a little bit but I'm sure it will be fine."
In South Africa, where Mr Shuttleworth had initially been criticised for spending a fortune on a jaunt, Mr Nelson Mandela led the country in toasting him as the world's first "Afronaut". "We wish him all the luck. We are happy to have a South African who has taken this journey," the former president said.
President Thabo Mbeki described Mr Shuttleworth as "a courageous pioneer for South Africa and his continent, Africa.
"In making his childhood dream a reality he has shown us the possibility of the impossible. He is the embodiment of the optimism and confidence of a nation to whom even the stars cannot be the limit."