BEIJING, Sept. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Richard Garriott, son of a former NASA astronaut, will follow his father's footsteps to travel in space, media reported Friday.

    Space Adventures, which has arranged five previous space flights, said Richard Garriott is scheduled to blast off aboard a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan in October 2008 on a one-week trip to the international space station.

    It will be the first time a child of an American astronaut rockets into space.

    His father, Owen Garriott, 76, spent 59 days aboard Skylab, America's first space station, in 1973 and flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1983. He retired from NASA in 1986.

    "My dad was an astronaut so I grew up believing that space was going to be available for everyone at some point in the future," said Richard Garriott, who is paying about 30 million U.S. dollars for his trip.

    "I grew up in an environment where not only was my dad actually going to space but both of my next-door neighbors were astronauts, the guy behind me over the fence was an astronaut. Basically, the whole neighborhood was either astronauts or engineers in support of NASA," said Garriott.

    "I just sort of assumed that one day we would all be going to space."

    The astronaut's son showed an early penchant for developing computer games and dropped out of college to devote himself full time to the endeavor, which has paid off handsomely.

    "My income in the computer gaming industry superseded my dad's income as an astronaut while I was in high school," said Garriott.

    He developed the "Ultima" series, a computer game franchise, and with his brother, Robert, founded Origin Systems, a computer game developer and publisher. He is also the largest investor of Space Adventures.

    (Agencies)