An American computer game designer reached space, fulfilling a long-deferred childhood dream that began with the flight of his astronaut father.

Richard Garriott AP PHOTO

The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft carrying Richard Garriott and two crewmates hurtled into a clear blue sky from the Baikonur facility on the Kazakh steppe Oct. 12.

Garriott, a 47-year-old multimillionaire from Austin, Texas, is the sixth paying space traveler and the first American to follow a parent into orbit.

The Soyuz docked Oct. 14 with the International Space Station, where British-born Garriott will spend about 10 days conducting experiments and photographing Earth to measure changes since his father snapped pictures from the U.S. station Skylab in 1973.

The spacecraft is bearing the digitized DNA sequences of some of the world's greatest thinkers and musicians ― as well as athletes, video game players and others. The eclectic list ranges from famed physicist Stephen Hawking to U.S. comedian Stephen Colbert.

The digitized DNA is part of "the immortality drive," a kind of time capsule that will also include a list of humanity's greatest achievements and personal messages from Earth. The program will be stored on the space station in case calamity were to one day wipe out the planet.