ISS stuffed with full staff of six Three more crew members boarded the International Space Station today from a Russian Soyuz capsule, doubling its permanent crew to six for the first time ever. The TMA-15 space capsule carrying flight engineers engineers Roman Romanenko of Russia, Robert Thirsk of Canada, and Frank De Winne of Belgium spent two days in space …
More recycled pee for everyone!! Heyyyyy!
... All jokes aside, the ISS crews are doing a kick-ass job up there! I raise a pint of Belgium Ale (my favorite ale) to future Station Commander Frank De Winne to a successful mission.
A very special thanks to the Russian Space Agency and all of its members for playing a major role in making the ISS a great success!
Спасибо и удача. (Thank You and Good Luck).
Carl, this new group of three arrived by Soyuz so, of course, there's now an extra one.
Gene, how does it feel to have paid part of the tens of billions of $ on this white elephant, while the UK has wisely decided to spend money more effectively. Just think of the space science and exploration of the solar system that could've been accomplished for the same cost as the ISS.
Assuming that the primary object of the station is to pump money, it's no surprise that the end of construction will mark the beginning of the end for the station.
If it's the one I think you're talking about, that's Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy, a Russian engineer -- and subsequent legend -- who had by the mid 1920s researched and considered every problem of modern spaceflight, including multi-stage boosters, orbital habitats and pressure suits:
http://www.astronautix.com/astros/tsivskiy.htm
Other notables include Yuri Gagarin (of course), and an old Orthodox iconic portrait of the Virgin Mary someplace around there; they're probably in a module in the Russian Zone.
And, besides, _this_ is more like what space does to you:
http://www.cinemaisdope.com/news/films/2001/2001_kubrick.jpg
@ Mike, Friday 29th May 2009 22:24 GMT:
They're probably in one of the older segments, one of the Russian modules launched in 1998 or '99 and which are based on technology originally intended for the Mir2 program. ISS isn't all one brand-spanking shiny new age; it's actually more like the homebuilt car in that old Johnny Cash song, in terms of component age. Plus, there's the fact that Russian spacecraft, even today, have always looked clunkier and "trashier". Ever seen the Soyuz cockpit? The old Apollo CM was a pimp-ass ride by comparison.
Soviet era technology like the space stations, the interplanetary probes and the efficient rocket engines which were designed and shown to work before the USAians stole the ideas. Look up the Venus missions. Thankfully the Russians were involved in the design of the ISS or a lot of people would have been killed by american hubris and incompetence.
Really if you find yourself brainwashed by propaganda it's your civic duty to find out the truth rather than regurgitate the same sad old dross.
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