By Olesya Dmitracova
MISSION CONTROL MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. space tourist Charles Simonyi returned safely to Earth on Saturday, touching down with a Russian-U.S. crew in the steppe of Central Asia after paying for a two-week round trip into space.
The Russian-made Soyuz capsule undocked from the International Space Station, re-entered Earth's atmosphere and landed just over three hours later in Kazakhstan at 1231 GMT.
Controllers who supervised the landing from Mission Control outside Moscow clapped along with the space travelers' relatives as they saw the announcement "It has landed!" appear in red capital letters on a giant screen.
Live television pictures from the landing site 133 km (81 miles) north-east of the Kazakh city of Jezkazgan showed recovery teams and doctors rushing to the capsule.
Ground crews first pulled out Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin who looked tired and kept his eyes closed. They then pulled out Simonyi who smiled while doctors wiped his face.
"I feel terrific, it was a fantastic trip, it is good to be back," Simonyi said before biting into an apple as he sat in a special reclining chair.
The world's fifth space tourist paid around $25 million for a fortnight in space and pre-flight training. He had been at the $100-billion space station, in orbit 350 km (217 miles) above Earth, since April 9.
Tyurin and the other crew member, NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, had spent seven months in orbit. Continued...
Charles Simonyi


Charles Simonyi, a billionaire software engineer born in Hungary, has returned to Earth after a 25 million dollar trip to the International Space Station with mission Soyuz TMA-10. The original mission, planned to last 13 days, was extended to 14 days when landing was made impossible due to "boggy ground". Mr. Simonyi, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, and American astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria made a successful landing in the Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft on the Kazakh steppe in Central Asia on Saturday.

Mr. Simonyi was said to be "ecstatic" after rescuers helped him from the capsule and into a fur-lined chair. His first piece of food back on Earth was an offering to returning space crews landing in Kazakstan - a green apple. The controllers supervising the landing burst into applause along with the families of the space crew as a giant screen displayed "It has landed!" in  large red letters.

Simonyi commented "I feel terrific, it was a fantastic trip, it is good to be back," before relaxing in a special reclining chair. The two other returning men were said to be very tired after their 7-month visit to the ISS. "It is natural that those who spend a quite long period of time in space find it harder now," said Anatoly Grigoryev, head of a Russian biomedical institute responsible for the health of the cosmonauts.