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Canadian billionaire "clown" returns to earth after space tour
Oct 11, 2009, 8:44 GMT
Moscow - Canadian circus billionaire Guy Laliberte returned safely to earth on Sunday on board a Russian Soyuz capsule after a 12-day trip in space for which he had paid some 35 million dollars.
Russian space officials said the Soyuz landed the steppes of Kazakhstan as planned, returning Laliberte, 50, along with Russian cosmonaut Gennadi Padalka and US astronaut Michael Barrett.
The latter two men were returning to earth after 198 days in space on board the International Space Station ISS.
'The landing went according to plan,' a space centre official in Moscow said, according to Interfax. 'The condition of the astronauts is normal. Helicopters and search teams are now on their way to the landing site.'
Laliberte, head of the famous Cirque du Soleil circus, famously wore a clown's red nose on his space journey. He was the seventh space tourist, according to Russian space officials.
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