Avid fan of video games? Have you always wished you could go to space? Do you have thirty million dollars? Then you have a lot in common with Richard Garriott.

Space, the final frontier, and for someone like Richard Garriott, a dream he's had ever since his father went to space in the 1970's. Richard's father is Owen K. Garriott an astronaut and scientist who went up and performed experiments in space during the Cold War.

Before going up into space, Richard Garriott was one of the co-founders of Origin Studios, the developer of the Ultima series and several other massively multiplayer role playing games. (In an early post you might remembemr that Origin was bought up by the accursed Electronic Arts). In recent years. Garriott has been involved with the development of City of Heroes and the follow-up City of Villians.

How much did this vacation cost him? About 30 million dollars, or 22 million euros. The forty-seven year old finally got his wishes when the tourism company Space Adventures picked him to be the next tourist in space. Garriott launched today from Kazakhstan and will reach the International Space Station on Tuesday. Garriott will be performing experiments on the effects of Space travel on the immune system and the sleep patterns of Astronauts.

I can't believe he paid thirty million dollars just to go into to space to do science fair experiments and sleep in a smelly space station. He could have put his money into so many better things like making better video games... buying a new haircut... or donating it to charity, but no Richard Garriott to be selfish and spend thirty million on himself.

The Bottomline: If you have thirty million dollars, go some place where at least you can buy souvenirs.