"My daughter gave it to me, it's still winter in Russia," he said calling the toy "a weightlessness indicator."
Champagne was opened when mission control confirmed the flight had entered orbit.
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Hungarian-born US software designer and space tourist Charles Simonyi (L) shares a kiss through the glass wall with his wife Lisa Persdotter at Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Tuesday, March 25, 2009. [Agencies]
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Barratt's wife, Michelle, watched smiling as the rocket rose into the clouds. "We feel great, it was a great launch!" she shouted.
British-born space traveler Richard Garriott, who also traveled from Baikonur, in October 2008, praised the reliability of the Russian space program.
"It's so amazing about how they do this over here. On time, every time, perfectly," he said.
While Barratt and Padalka will join the current station's permanent crew, Simonyi will return to Earth 13 days later -- a trip that will make him the first two-time space tourist and, for the foreseeable future, the last.
The space station's permanent crew is expanding from three to six, leading Russian officials to rule out space tourism from Baikonur for now.
Simonyi has offered to be more productive this time around, saying he will conduct medical and radiation experiments and chat with schoolchildren via ham radio and with his family via video stream.
After he returned from his $25 million, two-week space station trip in April 2007, Simonyi said Russian cosmonauts told him how different and rewarding it was to go back up a second time.
tourist aboard blasted off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on Thursday, local media reported.
