Moscow  - Texan space tourist Richard Garriott returned to firm ground Friday in a Russian Soyuz capsule that carried him and two Russian cosmonauts back from space.

The capsule with Richard Garriott, a computer games designer and son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, touched down safely around 0330 GMT at the Baikonour base on the steppes of Kazakhstan. Garriott paid 30 million dollars to follow in his father's footsteps.

Garriott was joined by flight engineer Oleg Kononenko and another second-generation cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, son of Soviet space programme veteran Alexander Volkov. Both had just ended a six-month mission on board the international space station (ISS).

Owen Garriott, who spent two months in the first orbiting space station in 1973, and the elder Volkov both stood in Baikonour to welcome their sons home.

Russia's Space Agency head, Anatoly Perminov, said he could not recall a more "ideal" landing.

In its two previous returns, the Soyuz capsule went badly off- course, crashing upside down into the atmosphere and raising safety concerns among Russian and American space experts over its safety.

Perminov also spoke of fears that the global financial crisis would cut into Russia's Soyuz programme, which from 2010 to 2015 will be the only ride to space as NASA, the US space programme, halts its flights to the ISS.

"We are holding talks with NASA on the use of the Soyuz spaceships. The talks are difficult. It is hard to say whether we shall fully meet our commitments in this financial crisis," he warned.

Garriott, 47, became the sixth space tourist to board the ISS, brokering his flight with the Russian Federal Space Agency through a Space Adventures firm based in the US state of Virginia. (dpa)