Richard Garriott in space :)

Well, don't know where to put it, as it's only 99% off-topic, but found it a bit interesting. My other hobby, apart form CRPGs, are mechanical wristwatches, and browsing one of the watch forums, I found this news:

In October 2008, Richard Garriott, the renowned video game designer and adventurer, will become the sixth private space explorer. Richard will conduct his space mission aboard the International Space Station, and during his flight, he intends to conduct a spacewalk, which would make him the first private individual to do so.

The info comes from Timezone forum:

http://forums.timezone.com/index.php?t=msg&goto=3627039&rid=63776#msg_3627039

He would look like that:



The thread above is mostly about the Seiko Spring Drive watch Garriott will be wearing in space, but there are some other interesting information: I did not know, that Garriott is the son of a NASA astronaut. Maybe after a spacewalk he will eventually decide to make a nice single-player RPG space opera

I'd be happy with ANY SP-RPG from LB!!

YEAh, he got bored with Ultima and single player, and Tabula Rasa, was not as great as I thought, on the other hand I am not that keen on MMORPGs, too much repetition of boring stuffs.

After he goes to space he might get to Revolutionizing the Single player genre yet again.

It is indeed a sad thing that no one has surpassed his latest single player RPG, even over 15 years later. Yes his last real one was U7, he was working on UO and did not take much part on 8 or 9, no wounder they turned out the way they did....

The technology advancements was used for graphics instead of improving upon anything else. In U7 there was no loading times, you could go anywhere you want, it had weather system, day night cycle, realistic NPC schedules, choices and consequnces, you could modify and move any object use them to build stairs and climb to a new place..... yeah all you guys already know everything it had + you could bake bread hehe. Makes all the modern RPG's look quite simple in comparasion!

A little update to Gariott's space walk. He took off on September 18th with a strange gift for Operation Immortality. He had Stephen Colbert's DNA with him. Richard phoned into Stephen's show right before he went into quarantine. Anyone else want their DNA perserved in case the human race is wiped off of Earth?

It cost Richard 30 million dollars for this trip. I had no idea he still had that kind of mad money to throw around.

Let's see Richard has a castle, has made tons of money making games and has now gone into space. I so envy this guy

Tiny article and link to Operation Immortality
http://www.plaync.com/us/news/2008/09/watch_the_colbe.html

Stephen Colbert's Sept 18 show with Richard
http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=185057

So, Richard Garriot fails to meet expectations and we kick him out of this planet?
Or did he leave voluntarily?