Looks like Lord British's flight to outer space is a go. Richard Garriott, executive producer of, well, Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, has officially started preparations to make the trip to the International Space Station (ISS) a year from now. Garriott will be among one of the first batch from the private sector to board the ISS.

Garriott's father, Owen Garriott, a former NASA astronaut, will also be heading for the ISS for research on biotechnology. Richard Garriott himself says of his trip to space:

I am dedicating my spaceflight to science. It is my goal to devote a significant amount of my time aboard the space station to science, engineering and educational projects. I understand the necessity for conducting research in extreme environments whether it is collecting microorganisms from deep sea hydrothermal vents to carrying out experiments in the continuous micro-gravity of Earth orbit. We need to be adventurous in mind and stimulate our intellects to answer today’s most daunting scientific questions and to invent tomorrow’s technological marvels.