Space tourist gets ready to blast off

Preparations are underway to send the world's second space tourist into orbit.

As a cold wind blew across Kazakhstan, the Soyuz TM booster rocket was gently guided into place today.

Igor Barmin, chief engineer in charge of the launch pad, said everything was ready for blastoff on Thursday from Central Asia’s Baikonur cosmodrome, the world’s oldest space facility.

South African Mark Shuttleworth, who is paying the Russian space programme €22m for the trip, and his two fellow crew members, Italian Roberto Vettori and Russian Yuri Gidzenko, will spend 10 days on the International Space Station.

‘‘Everything is proceeding normally, quietly,’’ Barmin said, standing near the rocket, which is decorated with the national flags of its three-man crew and the words ‘‘Marco Polo,’’ the name of the mission.

‘‘I don’t see any serious problems ahead,’’ he said.

In keeping with Russian tradition and superstitions, the crew members stayed away from the early morning preparations.

Most of the windows in the Cosmonaut’s Hotel, where the crew always stays prior to a launch, were still dark when work began before dawn today to move the rocket.

After the sun rose, the giant metal doors of the hangar slid open to reveal the 300 ton Soyuz rocket and the small, white capsule on top that will carry the crew to the space station and return them to Earth.

Lying on its side on a railway carriage, the rocket - already loaded with fuel - was slowly pushed on a 30 minute journey to the launch pad. A fire engine and ambulance followed nearby.

On its way, the rocket passed a monument commemorating one of the former Soviet Union’s proudest moments: the 1957 launch of Sputnik, the world’s first satellite, from the same cosmodrome, claiming the Soviets an early victory in the space race.

Since the Soviet Union’s disintegration, the Russian space programme has had little to celebrate, struggling to find funding and being forced to lease back some of its prime facilities, such as the Baikonur cosmodrome, from former Soviet republics.

But last year, the Russians found a potential way out of their problems by giving American businessman Dennis Tito a lift to the international space station for a reported €22m.

The flight annoyed the United States, with Nasa complaining that Tito was poorly trained and would get in the crew’s way.

The mission was successful, however, and this time, Russia has worked more closely with its US partners and Washington has raised no objections.

Shuttleworth, a 28-year-old Internet millionaire, has been through eight months of preparation, and even joined his full-time astronaut colleagues for a week of training at Nasa’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, something the Americans had barred Tito from.

Complaining that he does not like to be known as a mere tourist, Shuttleworth also has received instruction from Daniel Barry, a South African scientist who needs Shuttleworth’s help to conduct tests on stem cells in zero-gravity.

‘‘This is very exciting for all of us,’’ said Barry, who has set up a temporary laboratory in the space facility. ‘‘It is hard to believe that Thursday is almost here.’’