Soyuz

This morning, Charles Simonyi blasted off for his return visit to the International Space Station. He will return to Earth on April 7.

Read our interview with the avid tourist.

Charles Simonyi, a computer software executive most famous for leading the development of Microsoft Word and Excel in the 1980s, announced in September 2008 that he had booked a second flight with Space Adventures, currently the only company providing orbital space tourist flights to the International Space Station (ISS). Simonyi is currently training for the upcoming flight, which is scheduled to launch on March 25, 2009. He will join Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and NASA astronaut Mike Barratt, both members of Expedition 19 to the space station. The crew will ride to the ISS in the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-14.

I caught up with Charles in between his training for a little chat about his upcoming trip.

Yes, it ended well, but the rough-and-tumble landing that astronauts experienced recently as a Soyuz capsule on its way back from the International Space Station missed its landing target by 300 miles sure doesn't sound like something you'd want to do twice.

The three members of the 16th International Space Station crew experienced a "ballistic trajectory" while returning from the station to the steppes of Kazakhstan in their Soyuz capsule on Saturday. Translation: Their spacecraft fell to earth like a lead weight, subjecting them to double the g-forces expected.