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U.S. space tourist ready to blast-off
At a news conference, Olsen, whose trip was brokered by Virginia-based Space Adventures Ltd., said he preferred the term "space flight participant" to "space tourist." Tokarev labeled Olsen as "scientific investigator of the international space station." "'Tourist' doesn't do justice to all the work I've put in, or the work that the people at the Gagarin center (outside Moscow) put in preparing us," Olsen said. However, he said, "I will not participate pretending that I'm an astronaut or cosmonaut. There is so much knowledge needed to operate this vehicle." Asked about what else he was doing to get ready, Olsen responded: "All I have to do is to talk to my 4-year-old grandson, Justin ... That's all the mental preparation I need." McArthur, a retired Army colonel who has flown three times aboard the U.S. space shuttles, including one to the Russian space station Mir, said he had no doubts about the Russian space craft. "The record of the Soyuz indicates that it is a reliable vehicle. We have tremendous faith and confidence in the people who built and assembled our rocket," he said. Olsen also rejected assertions that space tourism was leading to the commercialization of space, and he defended his participation as a necessary step in the evolution of space flight. "Everyone flies (on planes) nowadays," he said. "The
same will be true of space flight."
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