Tourist Arrives At Space Station

A Russian Soyuz TMA-7 spacecraft docked flawlessly and ahead of schedule Monday at the international space station, delivering U.S. millionaire scientist Gregory Olsen and a new two-man crew.

Since the 2003 Columbia disaster grounded the U.S. shuttle fleet, the United States has depended on Russian Soyuz and Progress craft to ferry its astronauts and supplies to the orbiting space station. Discovery visited the station in July, but problems with the foam insulation on its external fuel tank cast doubt on when the shuttle would fly again.

Applause erupted from members of Olsen's family, and U.S. and Russian space officials gathered at Russian Mission Control in Korolyov outside Moscow when the docking was announced approximately 5 minutes before the 9:32 a.m. target. It was conducted through automatic systems.

Olsen's 31-year-old daughter, Krista Dibsie, asked by reporters how her father felt, said: "He's never felt better. He actually talked to the doctor and said he felt excellent."

"I can't wait to see him back on Earth," she said, as her 4-year-old son, Justin, sat on her lap while holding his crayon drawings of rockets.

Later Monday morning, the final air locks were to be opened and the Soyuz capsule passengers would meet with Russian Sergei Krikalev and American John Phillips, who have inhabited the orbiting station for six months.

Astronaut William McArthur and cosmonaut Valery Tokarev are to man the station for the next six-month stint, while Olsen is to return to Earth on Oct. 11 with the current crew on a Russian spacecraft.

On the eve of the Soyuz blast-off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Russian space officials warned that they could not guarantee McArthur's return next spring unless NASA paid for the flight.

But a U.S. law passed in 2000 penalizes countries that sell unconventional weapons and missile technology to Iran - and Russia is helping Iran build an $800 million atomic power plant, despite concerns Tehran will build nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Senate has agreed to amend the measure and lift a ban on NASA purchases of Soyuz seats until 2012. The House has yet to act on it.

NASA's international space station program manager, William Gersteinmaier, said Monday that McArthur would get home one way or another.

"We have a way home for him either on the shuttle or on the Soyuz," he told reporters at Russian Mission Control, but would not say whether the astronaut would be able to return to Earth on schedule in April.

Anatoly Perminov, chief of the Russian space agency, said the European Space Agency could send up a ship to the station as early as the end of 2006.

The cash-strapped Russian space agency has turned to space tourism to generate money. Olsen is the third non-astronaut to visit the orbiting station, reportedly paying about $20 million. The first two space tourists were California businessman Dennis Tito and South African Mark Shuttleworth a year later.

CBS News Correspondent Beth Knobel reports that Olsen is a 60-year-old scientist who made a fortune building high-tech sensors and cameras - some of which he planned to use in experiments on board.

Olsen, who holds advanced degrees in physics and materials science, has defended his presence in the capsule as a necessary step in the evolution of space travel.

"I would hope that my flight would help, if just to make space flight more routine," Olsen said, in an interview just before the launch.

His sister, Amy McCarroll, says the flight is motivated by a devotion to science.

"He is a scientist first of all, and that's his main reason for going up there," said McCarrroll, "to help mankind, to see what comes from his experiments."

Olsen had hoped to fly last year, but had to postpone at that time because of a health problem. Doctors later gave him the green light.