First second-generation space traveler gets fatherly advice

— -- Sergey Volkov had no trouble getting firsthand advice on what to expect when he blasts off on his first space mission Tuesday. He just called dad.

Volkov's father Alexander spent more than a year in space as a cosmonaut, Russia's equivalent of an astronaut. Eventually Sergey applied to be a cosmonaut — without telling his father— and is now poised to become the first person to follow a parent into orbit.

The 35-year-old son will pilot a Russian Soyuz spaceship to the International Space Station, where he'll spend six months as the station's commander. He says he devoted his life to space travel despite his father's example, not because of it.

His father's experience "made my decision harder," Sergey Volkov says. During his childhood he saw "how much work it is, how tough the tasks (my father) performed, how hard it was for him to reach his goal."

Sergey Volkov isn't the first person to follow a blood relative off the Earth. NASA astronaut Mark Kelly flew his first space shuttle mission in 2001, two years after that of his identical twin, astronaut Scott Kelly.

Sergey Volkov can, however, rightfully claim to be the first second-generation space traveler — a milestone that illustrates the maturity of the Space Age, says Roger Launius, a curator at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The fact that it took so long — the first human to launch off the Earth did so in 1961 — also drives home a different point: the risk and cost of space missions remain high. No child of an astronaut is even in training at NASA.

"It does show how far we have not come," Launius says. "The fact that there is such a small number of people (who've been to space) … shows just how difficult it has been."

Sergey Volkov grew up surrounded by members of that small fraternity. He was raised in Star City, Russia, home of the cosmonaut corps.

Sergey Volkov decided to become a cosmonaut despite doubts that he could live up to the legacy of his father, whose exploits earned him a designation as a Hero of the Soviet Union in 1985. It didn't help that after the younger Volkov began training in 1997, the staff drew unfavorable comparisons.