By Dmitry Solovyov
NEAR ARKALYK,
Kazakhstan (Reuters) - An exhilarated Dennis Tito, the world's
first space tourist, made a text-book landing on the Kazakh steppe
early Sunday and said he had just returned from paradise.
His Russian
Soyuz capsule, back from its week-long trip to the International
Space Station (ISS), touched down right on time at 5:41 a.m. GMT
and was dragged around 50 feet across the barren steppe as a strong
side-wind caught its parachute.
``It was great,
best, best, best of all. It was paradise, I just came back from
paradise. Great flight, great landing. A soft landing,'' blurted
the American millionaire as he emerged unsteadily from the capsule.
Tito and fellow
space travelers Talgat Musabayev and Yuri Baturin were later flown
to Moscow. A waiting bus took them to the Star City base where
they had trained for their historic space shot.
The American,
who is reported to have paid the hard-up Russians $20 million
for the flight, is expected to stay in Russia for about 10 days.
On landing
in Kazakhstan, the three men were each given an apple, a national
symbol which is traditionally presented to returning cosmonauts.
The American,
whose eight-day trip sparked a major U.S.-Russian row, tried to
juggle the apples but dropped them to the ground. ``You see, I'm
still used to weightlessness. But I enjoyed this trip. I've finally
had my dream,'' he laughed.
While Baturin
and the Kazakh-born Musabayev, looking fit and well, walked to
a nearby field hospital for a brief check-up, Tito had to be taken
in a wheelchair.
Before returning
to Moscow, the trio flew by helicopter to Kazakhstan's capital
in the steppes, Astana, to meet President Nursultan Nazarbayev,
who greeted them with a hearty hug.
Science
Fiction
``I offer
an especially warm welcome to Mr. Tito,'' Nazarbayev told his
visitor. ``Until recently you would only read in science fiction
that an ordinary man could go to space. You have paved the way
for space tourism.''
``My personal
experience was well beyond my dreams,'' replied Tito. ``I was
worried that I might not feel well in space. But I turned out
to feel the best I felt in my entire life.''
While Tito's
mission has caught the imagination of the world's press, Kazakh
journalists were far more interested in the adventures of Musabayev.
``I took some
Kazakh soil and a Kazakh flag,'' he told his appreciative audience.
``And my book and my portrait,'' chipped in a beaming Nazarbayev.
Dispute
Dogged Tito Trip
The three
men had blasted off for the $95 billion ISS on April 28, leaving
behind a furious row between U.S. and Russian space officials
about the propriety of Tito's trip.
Former U.S.
senator and astronaut John Glenn, who himself returned to space
aged 77, told CNN Saturday he believed Tito's trip was ``a misuse
of the spacecraft, and it was supposed to be for research.''
The Russian
space agency Rosaviakosmos overrode vociferous protests from its
U.S. counterpart to put Tito in space. NASA said the space buff
had no place on what is in effect still a construction site.
Yuri Semyonov,
whose Energiya corporation built Russia's segments of the ISS,
accused NASA of erecting an ``iron curtain'' in space by banning
Tito from its sections of the station.
Sunday he
said the Russian side was ``satisfied with this flight, despite
the fact that preparations were so emotional and there were some
emotional stories in the press.''
The unprecedented
public spat over the Tito trip has taken relations between Russian
and U.S. space officials to their lowest level since 1999, when
NASA accused the Russian space agency of failing to take its ISS
obligations seriously.
Perennial
cash shortages have dogged Moscow's space program since the collapse
of the Soviet Union. In part they forced Russia to abandon its
pioneering Mir space station in March after a record-breaking
15 years.
Washington
is paying the lion's share of the cost of the ISS project, but
Moscow, with unrivalled experience of long-term space flight,
has designed and built many key parts. It sees U.S. opposition
to the Tito flight as politically motivated.
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