Laliberte, 50, who is travelling as a paying "space tourist," wore a red clown nose as he spoke to his family via television link, surrounded by eight professional astronauts in the zero-gravity environment of the ISS.

"Hello, how are you? Can you see me well?" Quebec native Laliberte asked one of his children, appearing relaxed.

"Papa, I love you!" the boy responded from mission control in Moscow.

"I love you," said Laliberte, the billionaire founder of the popular Cirque du Soleil and the seventh person in history to spend millions of dollars from a personal fortune to fly into space.

Laliberte boarded the ISS with US astronaut Jeffrey Williams and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev, two days after they blasted off from the Baikonur space base in Kazakhstan.

Their Russian-made Soyuz craft docked normally at 0835 GMT, a spokesman for mission control in Moscow said, and hatches were opened allowing the three to board the ISS about three hours later.

The arrival of the trio has increased the ISS's crew to nine. Laliberte is due to return to Earth on October 11 alongside Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and Michael Barratt of the United States.

The Canadian could be the last space tourist for some time as seats will be limited aboard the Soyuz once NASA takes its long-serving shuttles out of service from 2010.

The head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos said Friday that more tourists would be possible if NASA decided not to retire the shuttle next year -- a move that the US agency may be considering, according to some US media reports.

"If the shuttles continue working after 2011, Roscosmos will have the chance to offer free places for participants in the flight process, or space tourists, as you say, to go to the ISS," agency head Anatoly Perminov told reporters.

A former stiltwalker and fire-eater, Laliberte has already entertained his fellow crew members with a soap bubble show during their Soyuz flight.

He has vowed further antics aboard the ISS, including tickling his fellow astronauts while they are asleep.

On October 9 he plans to preside over what he has called the first ever artistic mission from space, which will take place in a dozen cities around the world and involve music, dancing and images.

The event will be based on a poetic tale imagined by Laliberte and written by the Canadian author Yann Martel, who wrote the Booker Prize-winning novel "Life of Pi".

It is designed to raise awareness of Laliberte's foundation, which works to preserve access to freshwater resources around the world.

The Cirque du Soleil, which Laliberte founded in 1984, fuses acrobatics with music and has made him the world's 261st richest man with a fortune of 2.5 billion dollars, according to Forbes magazine.

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