U.S. space tourist returns to Earth

A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying U.S. space tourist Richard Garriott and a Russian crew bumped down safely in Kazakhstan at 0336 GMT as planned on Friday.
"Everything went well. They landed safely," said a Moscow mission control spokesman. A NASA Television live feed from the centre described it as a flawless on-target landing.

Friday's re-entry has attracted heightened attention after the Soyuz malfunctioned twice over the past year, subjecting crews to dangerous "ballistic" re-entries and raising concerns about its reliability.

"The crew reports feeling well," the NASA live feed said.

Garriott, a U.S. video game magnate who paid $35 million for his 12-day space adventure, came back alongside Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko.

Garriott, son of a NASA astronaut, and Volkov, whose father was in space when the Soviet Union collapsed, are the first second-generation spacemen to fly together -- a symbolic act at a time when U.S-Russia relations are particularly tense.

- Reuters