ASTANA, Kazakstan -- The Russian capsule carrying the world's first paying space tourist landed successfully Sunday on the steppes of Kazakstan, ending American Dennis Tito's multimillion-dollar adventure in the cosmos.\nRecovery helicopters saw the Soyuz capsule's rockets fire to brake its descent about 3 feet above the ground. Three spotter planes, 10 helicopters and four all-terrain vehicles sped to the landing area to meet Tito and cosmonauts Talgat Musabayev and Yuri Baturin.\nThe search-and-rescue team confirms that the retro rockets worked normally for a soft landing," Russian Mission Control said, adding that spotters reported the crew was fine after spending six days on the international space station and three hours hurtling back to Earth.\nBefore the return voyage, Tito and the cosmonauts gathered with the three astronauts staying on at the station for a final video linkup with Mission Control in Korolyov, outside Moscow.\nPersonally, I've had the time of my life. I've achieved my dream and nothing could have been better," Tito said. "I thank everybody that supported my mission."\nMusabayev and American astronaut Jim Voss hugged, but Voss gave Tito a more formal farewell, shaking his hand. Tito and the cosmonauts then floated headfirst into the Soyuz, their stockinged feet disappearing from view before the hatch connecting the capsule with the station was closed.\nInside the capsule, they switched on its power supply and powered up its navigation computer. They donned bulky spacesuits for the flight back to Earth and ensured the Soyuz was airtight before it undocked from the station at 10:21 p.m. EDT Saturday.\nA video attached to the capsule showed the space station quickly receding in the distance and the Earth coming into view. The capsule orbited once around Earth, then scuttled most of its weight, including the habitation module with toilet and kitchen and the instrument module with its batteries and solar wings.\nThat left only the 3.3-ton landing capsule, which started braking over the eastern coast of Argentina to slow its plunge to Earth.\nIn the last communications session with the crew, Mission Control asked Musabayev to give Tito two unspecified medicines and salt water to help him endure the stress of gravitational forces.\nFlight commander Pyotr Klimuk told the crew that the weather was fine at the landing site near Arkalyk, about 250 miles southwest of the Kazak capital Astana, with scattered clouds, winds of up to 15 miles per hour and the temperature hovering around 68 degrees.\nI wish you good luck," Klimuk said.\nAfter landing, Tito and the cosmonauts were to be flown to Astana for medical checkups and a welcoming ceremony. Then they were to fly to Moscow for another ceremony at Star City, the cosmonaut training facility where the 60-year-old Tito underwent months of preparation.\nRussian space officials said that training made him as competent as any professional space traveler, but the U.S. space agency NASA vigorously objected. It contended that having a recreational traveler aboard the space station could impair work conducted on the 16-nation project.
Tito, a 60-year-old financier from Santa Monica, Calif., paid a reported $20 million for the trip, which originally was to be to Russia's Mir space station. But after Russia decided to dump the deteriorating Mir into the Pacific Ocean, the destination was switched to the space station.\nNASA eventually dropped its complaints, but then asked Russia to postpone the launch because astronauts were experiencing computer problems affecting the space shuttle Endeavour, which was docked at the station.\nRussia resisted the plea and the Soyuz crew blasted off April 28 from Baikonur, the sprawling launch facility that the Russian space program leases from Kazakstan.\nTito, after experiencing a bout of space sickness en route to the space station, expressed nothing but delight with the trip. He said that despite the controversies, American astronauts on the station "have gone out of their way to show me around."\nBut NASA head Daniel Goldin complained the next day that Tito's trip "put an incredible stress" on the American agency. He said thousands of people had to work to ensure his safety.\nYuri Semyonov, the head of RKK Energiya -- the space engineering firm that built the Russian modules used on the international space station -- hailed the flight Sunday as an important precedent. \n"We are satisfied with this flight and we see the beginning of commercial exploitation of the international station," said Semyonov. He added, "Tito will return to his homeland and settle with his own government."\nTito said Friday that one of his first tasks back on Earth will be to try to convince officials to drop their objections and make space jaunts available to everyone -- at least those who can afford them.\nThere appear to be plenty of people who aren't scared off by the price tag. The U.S. company Space Adventures, which helped Tito broker his trip, says it has several serious customers prepared to pay tens of millions of dollars for similar journeys. It said about 100 more have made reservations for proposed suborbital flights -- a relative bargain option at $98,000 per person.
