Posted: Mon, Apr 3, 2006, 7:34 PM ET (2334 GMT)
A former Microsoft software developer who led the development of some of that company's biggest programs has signed a deal to fly to the International Space Station as a space tourist as early as next year. The Russian space agency Roskosmos and space tourism operator Space Adventures announced Monday that Charles Simonyi would fly to the ISS as a tourist. According to Roskosmos Simonyi would fly to the ISS as early as the spring 2007 taxi fligh, but Space Adventures, in a statement, declined to specify a date for his flight. If Simonyi does fly in spring 2007 he would become the fifth commercial space tourist to visit the ISS; the fourth, Japanese entrepreneur Daisuke (Dice-K) Enomoto, is scheduled to fly to the ISS this fall. Simonyi worked at Microsoft for over two decades and oversaw the development of several key applications, including Word and Excel. He left Microsoft in 2002 and started up his own software company as well as donating millions of dollars to various organizations.
