Garriott will stay in the ISS for ten days and return to the Earth together with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononeko and Sergei Volkov. Lonchakov and Fincke will continue their mission together with NASA's Gregory Chamitoff.
There have been so far six paid visitors to the ISS since California businessman Dennis Tito became the world's first space tourist in May 2001 at a price of 20 million U.S. dollars, or 1,800 dollars per minute, for an eight-day trip.
The sons of a Russian cosmonaut and a US astronaut met in space yesterday when spaceman Sergei Volkov welcomed American Richard Garriott on board the International Space Station.
Garriott, a computer game developer who paid $35 million for his trip to space, arrived with two crewmates on board a Soyuz capsule, which docked with the space station two days after blasting off from a launch-pad in Kazakhstan.
After the hatches were opened between the capsule and the station at 9:55 GMT, Volkov, whose cosmonaut father was orbiting the earth in 1991, welcomed Garriott with a hug.
US space agency NASA said they are first children of previous space adventurers to meet in orbit.
Russian television showed Garriott smiling after taking congratulations from friends and family, including his astronaut father Owen, who joked with Alexander Volkov at mission control in Moscow.
Space tourist Garriott, US astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the Kazakh steppe on Sunday.
Fincke will serve as commander of the six-month Expedition 18 mission which will focus on preparing the station to house six crew members on longer-duration missions.
Russian space officials brushed aside reports of problems with a toilet at the station, saying all problems had now been resolved and that there were several reserve systems.
After 10 days in space Garriott will return to Earth with the ISS's outgoing crew aboard a Soyuz re-entry vehicle, a three-person capsule which has malfunctioned on its last two flights.
The PSLV-C11 (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle), Chandrayaan-1 sits on the second launch pad of Satish Dhawan space centre at Sriharikota, about 100 km (62 miles) north of the southern Indian city of Chennai, October 11, 2008. Chandrayaan-1 is India’s first mission to moon. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
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