Mark Shuttleworth
Mark Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973 in Welkom, Free State) is a South African entrepreneur. As an early space tourist, he was the first South African in space.
Mark Shuttleworth studied Finance and Information Systems at the University of Cape Town. In 1995 he founded Thawte, specializing in internet security. He sold Thawte in 1999 to VeriSign. Shuttleworth then formed HBD, a venture-capital company, and the Shuttleworth Foundation, which funds educational projects in South Africa.
On 25 April, 2002 Shuttleworth lifted-off aboard the Russian Soyuz TM-34 mission, traveling as space tourist for approximately $20 million U.S. Two days later the Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station, where he spent eight days, participating in experiments related to AIDS and genome research. On 5 May, he returned to Earth. In order to participate on the flight, Shuttleworth had to undergo one year of training and preparation, including seven months which he spent in Star City, Moscow.
In the early 1990s he was a Debian developer, and in 2004 he returned to the GNU/Linux world by funding the development of Ubuntu Linux, a new open-source operating system, via his company Canonical Ltd.
Mark Shuttleworth currently (2004) lives in London.
Shuttleworth claimed to be the first African in space, but some point out that Patrick Baudry — a French astronaut who was in space before Shuttleworth — was born in Cameroon. Others point out, however, that Baudry has always been a French citizen and that Cameroon was still a French colony at the time of his birth.
See also
- List of astronauts by name
- List of South Africans - Voted 18th in the Top 100 Great South Africans