To Infinity and Beyond

STORY: JO-ANNE SOMERA

He’s created the longest running Role-Playing Game (RPG) series, explored the farthest corners of the Earth and traveled into the vast reaches of the universe. From his elaborate Texas home, Richard Garriott discusses growing up with NASA as a neighbor, his many expeditions, and even space skydiving in an exclusive to Brilliant. 

Rows and rows of medieval weaponry line the walls. A gleaming suit of armor stands tall against a deep purple velvet curtain. A hidden doorway reveals a secret passageway, in which a winding staircase leads to the dungeon down below. What sounds like the setting of a 16th century castle is actually the Austin home of Richard Garriott, renowned video game developer, entrepreneur and more recently, the first second generation astronaut to go into space. 

Glancing around Britannia Manor, the name of Garriott’s home, it is easy to be transported to another time and place. Amid the medieval artifacts lie various mummified objects, shrunken heads and objects that are literally out of this world - like a couple of the original Sputniks. What’s even more unbelievable is that Garriott’s travels are far more vast than his collections. 

Garriott was born in England and grew up in Houston, where he always felt the need to go out and explore unfamiliar territory. “Even when I was quite young I would go in search of caves and places to explore since I was a young whippersnapper,” Garriott reveals. This also transferred over to the fantasy and virtual worlds - Garriott credits three things that got him into the video gaming business: the Lord of the Rings series, the Apple II computer and Dungeons and Dragons. 

“I was immediately attracted to the computer, Lord of the Rings was my first exposure to fantasy and, of course, I became a big Dungeons and Dragons player,” Garriott admits. “So it was only natural that as I learned and explored the computer that I would learn and explore by writing fantasy games.” Garriott brought that thirst for knowledge and adventure to the University of Texas at Austin, which was where he published his first video game, Akalabeth, and fell in love with the city he now calls home. Shortly after, he went on to create Ultima, the wildly successful and longest running RPG series ever. 

Garriott is full of energy and passion when talking about his endeavors, whether it is the gaming industry, the many expeditions he’s taken all over the world (he calls Antarctica the most beautiful place he’s ever seen on the surface of the Earth) or his trip into space. With NASA next door and astronaut Owen K. Garriott for a father, Garriott thought that going into space was a normal, everyday thing. 

“I grew up believing you didn’t have to decide to grow up to be an astronaut, I just believed everybody went into space,” he confides with a laugh. So when a NASA physician told him he wasn’t eligible to be a NASA astronaut, it was like being denied membership to the club of which he was dying to belong. Despite the big blow, Garriott pushed on and was inspired to create a civilian route into space. That’s when Space Adventures was born, the first company that allows anyone to explore the final frontier. In October 2008, Garriott became the sixth private citizen to travel into space, following in his father’s footsteps and fulfilling his lifelong dream. 

During his 12 day stint on the international space station, he conducted research and various experiments involving protein crystal growth, the effects of spaceflight on the immune system and how the Earth has changed in a generation, to name a few. “Floating in microgravity is actually a very joyous experience,” Garriott recalls. “Just seeing the Earth from space is a truly life changing event.” 

Most of his current and future projects back on Earth are inspired by his voyage. He is currently chairman of the board of Space Adventures and is working to make space travel a more plausible and affordable opportunity for everyone. Also influenced by his trip are various environmental ventures, like reducing his power consumption and converting his car to run electrically. Garriott hopes to return again soon and also to do what he calls “space skydiving,” which is to ride a suborbital vehicle up and then jump off. Garriott thinks of his past, present and future undertakings with the notion that with perseverance, you can do anything. “As long as you are capable of learning from each step along the way, some really monumental things can be accomplished,” Garriott divulges. “There’s a lot of the world left to see and space has only just begun.”

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