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

The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft carrying Richard Garriott and two crewmates – and the digitized DNA sequences of some of the world’s most famous minds – hurtled into a clear blue sky from the Baikonur facility on the Kazakh steppe on Sunday.

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 is due to dock Tuesday with the international space station, where British-born Garriott will spend about 10 days conducting experiments – including some whose sponsors helped fund his trip – and photographing Earth to measure changes since his father, Owen Garriott, snapped pictures from the U.S. station Skylab in 1973.