Billionaire Space Tourists

Once in space, Garriott's itinerary will be busy. To show that space travel isn't just a lark, he's promoting in-flight commercial activities. For sponsor ExtremoZyme, he will take protein molecules into space and document their crystallization in zero gravity. The data, he says, could be used to develop drugs and therapies for various ailments.

Garriott also plans to devote time to photographing the earth, in a nod to the 60 days his father spent in 1973 making observations from space station Skylab 3. Snapping pictures of urban areas, glaciers, deserts, forests and volcanoes will show how earth has changed "within a lifetime," he says. He also wants to communicate with schools--possibly by streaming video--to promote awareness of space travel.

Despite a lifetime of preparation, discussing the prospect of space travel still makes him giddy. "The total time from the beginning of re-entry to being on the ground is six minutes," he marvels. "It's phenomenal."

He's equally excited about an increasingly accessible future for space travel. Space Adventures is currently negotiating with cosmonauts to take guests to the moon and back. Garriott likens it to chartering a pilot: "You'd get two seats at a time, with input into how long you stay, where you fly and where to dock." He is also keen on the plans under way at Las Vegas-based start-up, Bigelow Aerospace, to develop a commercial space operation for low-earth orbit by 2012.

"If you look at my creations, homes, collections and vacations, it's one big continuum," he notes. Case in point: His Austin, Texas, estate--named Britannia Manor in a nod to his English roots--boasts an observatory, secret passageways and dungeons. An avid amateur magician, Garriott also collects oddities including scientific instruments and favors extreme adventures such as safaris, exploring hydrothermal vents in Antarctica and salvaging deep ocean wrecks.

It all feeds his overarching goal of making space travel commercially viable. "The fundamental reason for going is just that I want to go. Participating as a follower or viewer would be enough," says Garriott. "But the great joy of going is to be productive. There's so much value all around you up there."