Charles Simonyi recently became the latest loaded space tourist to buy a $20m ticket to the International Space Station. Not everyone will know Simonyi’s name, but most will be only too familiar with his work: he made his fortune leading the development of Word and Excel at Microsoft.

Sneak feels for the regular astronauts. It’s well known that psychological stress is an issue for those trapped in orbit, floating in a tin can, far above the world, where no-one can hear you scream. How much worse must it be to have a man who made millions from Microsoft’s deranged Clippy float up to you and say: “You look like you’re having a nervous breakdown - can I help?”

10 Apr 2007