Richard Garriott talks about the training required to carry Stephen Colbert’s DNA into space

Video game designer Richard Garriott will soon become a tourist. . . in space. He’s nearly completed his training and plans to spend 10 days in orbit. Read the full TIME magazine article online for more information on Garriott’s lifelong history with space flight and NASA, his thoughts on the spaceflight preparation, and the one thing he really wants to do in zero gravity.

Garriott on the DNA idea and NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman:

One of your most important missions is preserving the DNA of Stephen Colbert for the future population of the human race. How did that come up?
I’m a big fan of the show, and when I was at a gaming [convention], one of my fans came up to me and gave me one of his WristStrong bracelets. I have of course worn it through my training, and we’ve been editing together a pitch because I thought basically, here was my ticket to get onto the show. And midway through my training, Garrett Reisman, a NASA astronaut who is also a fan of the show, called in from space, to show that he had this on his wrist. In space. And totally scooped me.

So we’d been sending photographs and video to the Colbert show during my training and we’d really gotten no response. Up until Operation Immortality, which originated purely as a promotion for [science fiction computer game] Tabula Rasa, thinking of it as a way I could tie my space game into my space flight. We wanted originally just to send some of the player data and player votes on the greatest accomplishments in humanity, and we thought it’d be cool to send some of their DNA.

Read the entire article here

Best of luck to you, Mr. Garriott!