Microsoft Word Developer Reaches Space Station

Former Microsoft developer Charles Simonyi (middle) finally reached the International Space Station (ISS) as another proud space tourist. Simonyi, who has his own company now, developed Microsoft software such as Word. He paid $25 million for the ride. Together with two cosmonauts, he took off from a launch pad in the Central Asian steppe. He brought gourmet food by Martha Stewart, who is a close friend of his. The success of the trip is seen as the start of a new age of space tourism, even as new spacecraft are designed to specifically carry tourists into space. Simonyi is the world's fifth space tourist.

ISS Photographed on Solar Disk

Look ma! It's the Sun! And it has a cute sunspot!

No kid, it's really the International Space Station (ISS) with the space shuttle Atlantis docked to it! See, it's just about to undock and return to Earth.

Thierry Legault captured the tanden moving across the solar disk from a cow pasture in Normandy, France. The ISS was 350 miles away from the Earth. The sun? Well, it was and still is at 93 million miles away.

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