We've written about Hungarian-born software designer Charles Simonyi before here at Gadling. He's the rich guy who blasted off into space back in 2007 and spent 11 days as a space tourist on board the International Space Station.

Apparently that once-in-a-lifetime experience wasn't enough.

Simonyi launched into space for his second trip today. He went up in a Russian Soyuz rocked that lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The rocket is following the Space Shuttle Discovery, which is on its way to the International Space Station to relieve a crew that is working up there.

What exactly is Simonyi going to do up there? By my reading, not a whole hell of a lot. Last time he shared his experience with a blog. He's going to be doing more blogging this time around, and chatting with school kids via radio.

How much did he pay for his seat? He's not saying exactly, though he says that the list price for the seat to space was $35 million.