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CNN Sunday Morning
Mark Shuttleworth Back on Earth After Ten Days in Space; Interview with Dennis Tito
Aired May 05, 2002 - 11:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KARL: Mark Shuttleworth is back on earth after ten days in space. He paid millions of dollars for a trip to the International Space Station. CNN's Jill Dougherty has more on his journey of a lifetime.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): He plummeted back to earth at ten times the speed of sound, slowing as they hit the atmosphere, the heat so intense it scorched their Soyuz capsule glass. Mark Shuttleworth, the last to emerge, after Italian engineer Roberto Vittori and Russian Commander Yuri Gidzenko. Doctors checked their pulse, normal.
The return fell on Russian Orthodox Easter. Rescue crews greeted them with colored eggs and cake. Then off to a tent for more medical evaluations.
DOUGHERTY (on camera): The first thing these men feel back on earth is how heavy everything feels. After ten days of weightlessness in space, they have to get used to gravity again and they'll need several days of rehabilitation to do that.
(voice over): Mark Shuttleworth's ten days on the International Space Station made him a hero back home in South Africa, where he was dubbed the Afrinaut. In an interview a few days before his return, Shuttleworth told me his seven months of training in Russia helped him adapt quickly to space.
MARK SHUTTLEWORTH, SPACE TOURIST: I feel just the way I do on the ground. I don't feel any strange effects, other than the fact that things don't stay where you put them.
DOUGHERTY: Shuttleworth conducted experiments while on the ISS and brought one of them back with him, how animal embryos adapt to weightlessness.
RICK SHUTTLEWORTH, SPACE TOURISTS' FATHER: Once Mark decides to do something, there's no stopping him so there's no point in trying to stop his idea. But I know Mark and I know the way that he does things. He does things in a way that benefit many people.
DOUGHERTY: Back on earth, a hug from his father Rick, space tourist Mark Shuttleworth doesn't see it that way. He says he's an amateur astronaut, helping to open space for others. Jill Dougherty, CNN, Kazakhstan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KARL: Is Mark Shuttleworth feeling jet lag, uneasy on his feet? If anyone would know that it is Dennis Tito. Last year, Tito opened the portals, so to speak, for paying for space travel. Tito was following today's landing from Los Angeles and joining us from there right now. Dennis Tito, what did you start?
DENNIS TITO: Pardon?
KARL: What did you start?
TITO: Oh.
KARL: Is this the beginning of something that's going to become almost commonplace?
TITO: Well, I hope that I started something. With Mark flying, that's very encouraging. I think there are several people lined up for next October, and hopefully every six months we'll see people fly.
KARL: And when you did your trailblazing mission NASA was not happy with you, not happy with this idea of an amateur going into space, buying his way into space. That's changing a bit, huh?
TITO: Well, somebody had to break the ice and once they realized that the public strongly supported it, they decided to go along with it, and I think it's a good thing for NASA to get the public interested in human space flight.
KARL: So you've been through this and Shuttleworth is now down on the ground in Kazakhstan. And what's it like when you come back after? You spent a week. He spent ten days. What's it like coming back to earth after all that time in space?
TITO: Well, after eight, ten days of weightlessness, you're a little shaky on your feet, and they were very careful with me, because again, I was an amateur as well. But I recovered very quickly. I actually went running two days after landing.
KARL: And you know John Glenn, when he went into space, the thing he wanted to look at is the effect of weightlessness, being in space on the aging process. I mean how do you feel? I mean is it something that you feel has continued to affect you, your experience up there?
TITO: Well, the only way it's affected me is it's made me feel younger, because the experience was such a great one.
KARL: Yes, and that's a great shot of you bringing back memories of you experiencing weightlessness up there. Did you talk to Shuttleworth before he went up? I mean did he kind of compare notes with you? TITO: Yes. In fact, he came out to Los Angeles and met with me at my home and we spent all evening together talking about what it would be like.
KARL: Have you heard from him since he got back?
TITO: Well, I've -- no I haven't but I did talk to him in space. I had a live hookup with BBC.
KARL: Now you paid $20 million. He paid about $20 million. Is this kind of the standard ticket price for going to space, or how do we arrive at that dollar amount?
TITO: Well, that's a price that the Russian established and they will continue to utilize. Hopefully, over time when different means to achieve orbit is developed that the price will come down and hopefully in ten or 20 years, a lot more people will be able to afford it.
KARL: All right, well you were the trailblazer and we really appreciate you coming on and talking about this today. Thank you.
TITO: It's a pleasure, thank you.
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