The Ultimate Vacation

Chronicles of a Citizen in Space

Have you ever wanted to travel to outer space? Experience weightlessness? See the whole Earth out the window of your spaceship? For most of us, it's just a dream-or a nightmare! So far, only 450 people have ever travelled in space, all but three of them cosmonauts and astronauts.

But for lucky people with the US $20 million for a ticket to space, it's a dream come true. In a couple of weeks, the first female space tourist, Iranian-US businesswoman Anousheh Ansari, will blast off from Russia and travel to the International Space Station in high orbit around the earth.

While Ansari orbits the earth, back in New York, Gregory Olsen will be following her progress - he's one of the three who have been there before.

On the eve of the expansion of a very exclusive, club, Olsen tells Orato the amazing story of his own 10-day journey to the Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-7 capsule last year.

As every child, I've always dreamed of traveling to space, the "Final Frontier." I witnessed the landing on the Moon, back in 1969, and ever since I have been fascinated and captivated by the idea of exploring the cosmos. I just never thought I would actually go there.

I remember the exact moment I knew I'd go. It was June 18, 2003. I was sitting in Starbucks that morning reading The New York Times, as I do every day, when a story about space tourism caught my attention. I read how a company called Space Adventures had taken American Dennis Tito and South African Mark Shutlleworth to space. It was then I realized I wanted to be the next one.

As soon as I got to my office I looked the company up on the Internet. In a matter of no more than three hours, I had already contacted them and paid a deposit to ensure my journey. They called me back the same day and made an appointment to come visit. A week or two later, Eric Anderson, President of Space Adventures, was in my office. He explained all the details involved in this adventure: the training phases, cancellation policies, insurances and such. I learned we both had lots in common. We even went to the same university (University of Virginia). The more I talked to Eric the more I felt I've made the right decision. It'd take me almost three years, though, to make my boyhood dream come true.

The "D-day" was October 1, 2005. The place, Baikonur, Kazakhstan and the Mission that now is part of space exploration history: Soyuz TMA-7.

Feeling the rocket lifting and leaving Earth behind was the best moment of the whole experience. I thought: "Wow, I'm going into space! This is really happening!" I was very happy. My friends told me that the smile on my face when I was walking to the launch pad ... they hadn't seen that in years. As soon as the capsule was launched I was the most relaxed that I had been in two years. I had been grounded in June 2004, due to a black spot on one of my lungs, but I turned out that the spot was harmless and it went away. But I had a hard time persuading the Russians to take me back into the program. Not only did I have to go through the medical tests again, but I also had to bring my personal doctor from America to help me prove I was healthy.

That's why when people ask me if I was scared I have to answer with the truth: Of course I was. It was a fear of anybody in a white coat with a stethoscope. I was less afraid of the rocket blowing up than I was of the doctors knocking me out of the program. So when the rocket launched I knew I was finally going and I knew that the next 10 days would belong to me.

In the beginning the mood was serious and talk was task related. But once we were able to relax the cosmonauts and I started joking, for example, about how often we used the urinal. In weightless environments there is a fluid shift in your body so the three of us were using the bathroom one after the other in an endless loop.

After launching, the capsule felt very cramped. We had to stay in the base of the rocket for 2 ½ hours before taking off. Fortunately, we had rehearsed this scenario many times so we were all familiar with the situation. After 50 miles in the capsule it became easier to handle; even though we were strapped into a seat the lack of gravity relieved the cramped feeling. We could also escape for a bit to the habitat module and float around, but with three of us in there it became crowded so we tended to go in pairs.

Once you are up in space the feeling is beyond words. You discover that no matter how many Zero Gravity flights you've had, or how accurate the simulators used in the training were, the feeling of being weightless in orbit has no comparison. I liked it very much. I didn't even get motion sickness.

I'm not a pilot. Before this experience the highest I'd flown was at 80,000 feet on board the MIG 29. I boarded that aircraft, which is able to fly 2.5 times the speed of sound, in October 2003. That was the occasion when I went to Moscow for the first time to learn more about space travel I'd signed up for.

Almost a year after this visit to Moscow, there I was, among the stars. They look quite different when you are in orbit than from Earth. The geometry is exactly the same. The difference is that you don't have the atmosphere blocking the light, so they look much brighter and you are able to see many more stars. I had some problems recognizing some famous constellations, such as Orion, because you see many other stars around and in between that kind of put out of sight Orion's belt.

And then you see the Earth. The big blue sphere you have seen in photos, atlas and movies, but much more beautiful. It's a life changing experience.

A typical day The capsule is only about 5 feet high and maybe 7 feet around. It's comfortable, though. Again, you don't have the weight thing, so cramping has a different meaning.

The first two nights I had problems sleeping, perhaps because of the new environment. Once I felt more used to the capsule I had very restful nights with vivid and colorful dreams. I think because of the weightlessness my dreams revolved around being in my house or anywhere just floating around. My first week back on Earth I was still having "weightless dreams."

You have a sleeping back and you belt yourself to your wall, otherwise you'll float around. There's no gravity to mix hot and cold air, so the fans are constantly on to circulate the air and make sure the CO2 gets filtered out.

An ordinary day in the capsule would start at 8:00 a.m. (Greenwich Time), although I'd wake up earlier many times. We'd have breakfast and then a conference with the ground to receive radio instructions specifying our missions for the day. They'd tell us what to do at every given hour. Then, I'd usually work with the bacteria samples I took with me in order to make some medical experiments or I'd take photos. We'd break for lunch around 2 p.m., dinner at 8 p.m. and in between we'd work on assignments.

We ate all sorts of canned and dehydrated food and water. We had some good stuff, such as American shrimp cocktail. I said I've had worse in restaurants around here, in the U.S. It's reconstituted, but it's pretty good. Russian mashed potatoes were pretty good too. But it was mainly "camping food." Let's not kid ourselves. We also had a well assorted provision of medicines on board, but fortunately no one needed them.

Lights would go out at 11 p.m.

I never got bored. There was no time for that. I cherished every second I spent in space, even though I didn't get to do everything I'd liked. For example, I wanted to conduct two experiments of my own. One was to grow crystals and the other one was to test a camera that sees in the dark, which my company manufactures. Unfortunately, the U.S. Military didn't allow me to bring the camera on board. Instead, I did medical experiments for the European Space Agency (ESA). I took 50 bacteria samples and then brought them back down to Earth. As a result, the ESA found a new kind of bacteria that grows in space, which is not virulent. It mainly grew in the kitchen area, the radio set and the toilet areas. In the Soyuz, the crew made 34 orbits before docking at the ISS, where there were two other astronauts manning the station. The ISS is fairly close to Earth at 226 miles in outer space. It is about as wide as regular doorway, squared and 200 ft. long. I often think of my experience in the station as a long and weightless camping trip. No showers, no sinks, no running water. The crew uses wet wipes to clean up and an onboard vacuum to urinate. The crew straps into sleeping bags to sleep upright.

I also conducted experiments designed to prevent and treat motion sickness in space. Basically, I went on shaking, twisting and moving my head up and down and side to side to try to get motion sickness. About half of the people who go to space get motion sickness, but no one in the mission I was part of came down with it. That was unusual and interesting for the scientists. Space Participant

I don't like to call myself a "space tourist," neither have I thought I deserve to be called an astronaut or cosmonaut. I did have intensive training, but I do not consider myself a professional. I prefer to be called "space participant."

Astronauts and cosmonauts study and train for many years. They are able to fly a vehicle and they are far more skilled than I am. I was honored just to fly in the same capsule with a couple of them, especially with the Russian crew. The more I learned from them, the more respect I gained in their abilities. They were the first ones out there. They know what they are doing.

I can honestly say I was never afraid to go to space and I never changed my mind. There were a couple of moments, such as when we experienced a depressurization coming back down to Earth, that were slightly intimidating. We lost some pressure in the cabin, but the commander took immediate control. We had confidence in him. I was never worried and never freaked out.

I trusted the crew and I trusted myself. I had 900 hours intensive training in Russia where I learned what to do in case of an emergency. I also had a week of training in Huston, to get familiarized with the American segment of the International Space Station (ISS). Part of the overall preparation was about how not to be a burden to the crew. They are very busy and I didn't want to interfere and become a problem. In Moscow, there have high-quality simulators, exact copies of both the ISS and the capsule, so in my six months of training I was exposed to these simulators at least three times a week. I learned what every switch was for and the mechanics involved, but I was never allowed to touch them.

I came back to Earth after ten days in orbit. Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips, part of Expedition 11, who had been in space since April 2005, came down with me. I remember talking to them about what we'd like to do once we arrived back on Earth. In addition to seeing their families, John Phillips immediately said he wanted to have pizza and beer (someone actually arranged to have that for him when we landed). Sergei said he just wanted to have a cup of coffee in front of him to smell it. We had coffee in the space, but it was in a plastic bag and we'd suck it up with a straw so it wasn't the same. For me, I was only gone 10 days and didn't have time to miss anything.

During the time I was out there and even before, when I was training, I never felt any kind of condescension from any of the cosmonauts. I got along very well with all of them. I was worried they might look down on me, but this was not the case. They know the third seat in the capsule is always sold. It doesn't go to the Russians, so it's not that you are taking the seat from a fellow cosmonaut. They know this. I think they realized how serious I was about going to space. I attended all my classes and especially the gym. I was there every single day, training hard to do my best. Actually, I think the physical training was the easiest part for me.

The most difficult part was the Russian language. I don't speak it well. I knew just enough to understand the commands and what the switches were for. I remember, for example, the first time I went shopping in Baikonur. I had been practicing a lot the pronunciation of all the things I needed, such as milk, coffee, paper towels, etc. I was so focused on my shopping list when I entered the store I said "Доброе Утро!" (Good Morning) when it was actually night time.

Despite the language barrier, being part of the Russian team was great. Most cosmonauts speak some English, although not always perfect. Soyuz is a Russian-built and operated vehicle. Of course its signs, instruments and radio commands are all in Russian. All NASA astronauts who fly on Soyuz speak some Russian -enough to communicate on Soyuz where all communication is in Russian (most of our "chit-chat" during relaxing times on Soyuz was in English, for my benefit). Once we reached the ISS I no longer had problems because, by international agreement, the official language on the ISS is English.

I even had my own mission in space when we were descending: I was the person in charge of opening the Oxygen valve. I felt useful and I wasn't disappointed when the flight was over. I was actually elated and the first thing I said to myself when we landed was: "Phew! Thank God I didn't screw up."

Most of the pre- and post-adaptation is physical rather than emotional. You come back with a bit of lower back pain (I was one inch taller for a day thanks to weightless effects that cause the vertebrae to relax and stretch). Up in space you are mostly focused on doing your job and making sure the mission goes well. Because everyone must rely on one another, the importance is not on how you are feeling but making sure you do your work properly.

I have a sort of mantra -- "Don't give up." This saying has been in my mind my whole life. If you really want to do something, just don't give up. Never. It has worked for me. It worked when I was a kid after being written off as a failure by my teachers due to poor grades in high school. I planned to join the U.S. Army, but I was counseled to try college for several months. Through a scholarship, I attempted college, kept my grades high and graduated magna cum laude with multiple degrees from Fairleigh Dickinson University. I later graduated with a PhD from the University of Virginia.

Talking to Tito and Shutlleworth before going to Russia also helped me to keep my dream alive. Especially after I had the medical disqualification. Dennis told me to hang in there. After all, it took him 10 years to go into space.

Overall I met Tito two or three times. I hadn't seen him for about a year. But Shuttleworth I met several times. He was in Star City in July 2005, so we got to chat. They both said no matter what you think it's much better when you get up there, and they were right.

What's next? I don't know. I'd like to do the Moon trip. I know that the US space agency (NASA) has announced it will send a crew of four astronauts to the Moon for a one-week stay by 2020. There are several private companies announcing that they will start building their private spaceships this fall, too. There are options, but I guess I'd have to build and sell another company to afford that dream.

Traveling to space was absolutely worth it. You just can't put a price tag on an experience like that. I'd definitely do it again.