Billionaire Clown Heads for Space Station. (Hilarity Ensues.)

By Brooks Sherman

Published: September 30, 2009

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) – A spacecraft carrying Canadian circus tycoon Guy Laliberte and two crew mates lifted off from the Kazakh steppe on schedule Wednesday headed for the International Space Station.

The Soyuz capsule carrying the Cirque du Soleil founder, U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Williams and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev shed its rocket stages and entered orbit minutes after shooting up from the Baikonur launch facility atop a tower of flame.