Luckiest B@$&rd in the Galaxy

Look, we know that space-tourism is a decadent hobby for the ultra-wealthy.  We know that although they get shot up into space, the Richie Riches are mocked behind their backs by real astronauts.

But you know what?  We'd do it in a heartbeat.

So now that computer-game gazillionaire Richard Garriott has slipped the surly bonds of earth and then returned to, um, bondage, we salute him.  That is, we salute him for being so freaking rich he can do this kind of stuff, as well as for being so captivated by the allure of space travel that he put up with months of training in the russian space camp, which included Russian military food.  And we also salute him for being the world's first second-gen spaceman, since his father Owen flew on Spacelabs I & II.

But most of all -- and this is what pathetic creatures of the mass media we really are -- we salute him for depositing Stephen Colbert's DNA in space, to be retrieved for cloning purposes if the species should someday be obliterated.  We even know which sample it was.