Great video of the recent launch...   A Soyuz capsule carrying a Russian-American crew and U.S. billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi blasted off for the international space station Thursday. The Russian rocket lifted off on schedule from the Baikonur cosmodrome facility in a roar of fire and soared into the cold, overcast skies over northern Kazakhstan’s barren steppes. At viewing st More..ands, scores of officials, reporters and relatives watched the launch, including Simonyi's 28-year-old Swedish socialite wife Lisa Persdotter. Software designer Simonyi paid $35 million for his second trip on the Soyuz. He joined Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and American astronaut Michael Barratt in the cramped capsule, where they will sit for nearly two days before hooking up with the station, orbiting some 220 miles above the Earth.