Charles simonyi space trip

American billionaire Charles Simonyi is gearing up for hissecond trip to space as a paying civilian.

Set to launch Thursday at 7:49 a.m. EDT (1149 GMT) on aRussian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Simonyi willbecome the firsttwo-time space tourist. He is to ride along with the International SpaceStation (ISS)'s new Expedition 19 crewmembers, NASA astronaut Michael Barrattand Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka.

Simonyi paid about $35 million to the Russian Federal SpaceAgency, through the U.S. firm Space Adventures, for his13-day trip to the orbiting laboratory. He plans to conduct scientificexperiments, take pictures of Earth and talk to students around the world viaHAM Radio. He said he hopes to accomplish even more than he did during hisfirst trip in 2007.

"The efficiency of working in space is just increasedso much by having had the prior experience," Simonyi told SPACE.com ina recent interview. "It's a littl