Former Microsoft software developer Charles Simonyi is set to become a space tourist for a visit to the International Space Station (ISS), the orbital tourism firm Space Adventures reported.

Simonyi, 58, will ride a Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS where he will stay in fairly low star accommodation for a week.

The Russian news agency RIA Novosti also reported today that Simonyi had signed a preliminary contract with Russia's Federal Space Agency for a Spring 2007 spaceflight though the Virginia-based Space Adventures did not specify a target launch date in their statement.

Born in Budapest, Hungary, Simonyi joined Microsoft in 1981 where he became Vole's director of application development and chief architect. At Vole he was responsible for overseeing the development of Word and Excel. He later went on to co-found Intentional Software with Gregor Kiczales in 2002.

He might be reassured that while he was helping build software for Vole, his Russian counterparts where developing their space program on machines built in Plovdiv, Bulgaria that were basically Apple Mac specs nicked by the KGB. So, god forbid, if anyhing goes wrong he will not see a blue screen of death.

In addition to arranging space station flights aboard Soyuz spacecraft for those who can afford it, Space Adventures also offers jet rides aboard Russian MiG aircraft and airplane flights that simulate weightlessness. The space tourism firm is also developing plans for $100 million trips around the Moon, and plans to build fleet of suborbital spaceships to launch from spaceports in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.