Tim Peake's Soyuz lands in London after jaunt around the UK

Having spent the last 20 months being lugged around the UK, the Soyuz capsule used to ferry British Astronaut Tim Peake safely back to Earth is returning to London's Science Museum. The capsule has enjoyed an eight-stop tour of the UK, popping up in locations as diverse as the National Railway Museum in York, Peterborough …

[Admiral Grace Hopper]

Scarier than Manchester?

What a lazy and ill-informed swipe. To quote the much missed Moderatrix, ODFO.

[jake]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

And how many lazy and ill-informed swipes have you personally taken at the Yanks in this very forum? There is a word for that, and not one I'd like to be saddled with ...

[Admiral Grace Hopper]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Me? Take a swipe at Americans? Not really. American cheese - now I have taken an almighty swipe at that dairy abomination, and I have taken issue with my former employer, EDS, but they were more Texan than American.

[Rich 11]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

but they were more Texan than American

And they'd take that as a compliment!

[jake]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Fair enough. I must have mentally filed you in with the lot who have clearly never even traveled as far as Hull. Mea culpa. This round's on me.

In other news ... take it from a Yank, so-called "American Cheese" is neither. Narsty stuff. As for Texans ... they claim to be the only state that can secede from the Union. Most of the rest of us wish they'd stop babbling about it and get on with it.

[BebopWeBop]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

As a non-American (although I did live there for some time) I must defend that country I found some extremely good cheeses - just not in a supermarket.

[jake]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Whole Foods Markets usually have a decent selection of cheeses here in the US, although they are a trifle on the spendy side. I'm expecting Amazon to notice and remove them any day now.

[AIBailey]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Last time I visited the US, I was amazed that a selling point on a pack of cheddar cheese was "Made with real milk". I still haven't figured out what else you could use. Fake milk?

I also saw Hersheys syrup that boasted it was "genuine chocolate flavor". Instead of fake chocolate flavour?

[Gio Ciampa]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

What about "Imitation American Cheese" (as referenced in an episode of Top Gear)?

[jake]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

"American Cheese" is what you find on fast food cheeseburgers in the US. In the rest of the world, the same fast food chains use "Imitation American Cheese". I suspect that Top Gear didn't know this when the broadcast was made.

Hope this answers your question.

[Lars]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

"Most of the rest of us wish they'd stop babbling about it and get on with it.".

Farage is working on it, but Americans don't quite fall for his persona the way he has been hoping for.

[Gio Ciampa]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

"Farage" and "working" in the same sentence...?

I'll wager his attendance record for however long we're still a member will be (as before) almost non-existant.

[werdsmith]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Ill informed swipes on The Register are fair in that any area that hasn't had a swipe is only because they haven't got round to it yet.

[jake]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Indeed. This place seems to be an equal opportunity swiper. This is a good thing.

Note that my ill-informed complaint wasn't about the swiping, per se, rather it was about the complaining about said swiping while taking a swipe at another party ...

[Korev]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Just swipe left and be done with it...

[AD]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

It might be the same person who only wrote the story to say the capsule was back in London (hurrah, it survived the oiks!) - but didn't write a story to say it was touring the country in the first place? Or the same person that is prepared to be unnecessarily rude about Manchester, but can't even bring themselves to name the museum there that hosted the capsule? (The Science and Industry Museum - well worth a visit)

[defiler]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Yeah - it would have been nice to know. I'd certainly have popped along to see it, even though we still don't get to know where it was beyond "Scotland". I guess it wasn't East Kilbryde, or they'd have had the wheels off it.

[GruntyMcPugh]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

@Defiler: "it would have been nice to know"

Certainly would,... but checking the venues it was at, I'm surprised it never made an appearance at 'the National Space Centre' in Leicester, as I live locally, and would have gone for a look. I guess I'm also relieved it wasn't there, as I'd be kicking myself I'd missed it.

[dak]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

East Kilbride.

[defiler]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Ssh! We daren't name it! Only a pseudonym.

[Andytug]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Went to see it with the youngest daughter who was fascinated, but then she loved the whole museum too. Well worth a visit any time.

[Sgt_Oddball]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Their engine hall is a sight to behold (including a really novel 6 cylinder, 12 pison engine).

Its just a shame its the wrong side of the pennines (same can be said for Liverpool. To the point where I feel complelled to return there if only to confirm it really was as pleasant as my last trip round)

[NOTiFY]

Re: Scarier than Manchester?

Regionist comments from "down sarf". I thought the first rule of journalism was: What? When? and Where?

If you're going to quote Manchester least be arsed to do all three.

[Anonymous Coward]

No word if a trip through Manchester was scarier than atmospheric reentry ?

What London centric asshole wrote that headline ?

[Neil Barnes]

Nice to see, I suppose

Even though it was so well publicised this was the first I'd heard of it...

But it's always good to be reminded that I live in the only country in the world which has had a working space system and then given it up...

[Anonymous Coward]

Manchester

I saw it in Manchester. Wasn't scary at all.

I was just amazed at how small it was (the capsule; Manchester is huge)

[jake]

Re: Manchester

The City of Manchester isn't all that big. At 44 sq mi it's smaller than San Francisco (49 sq mi), and has under 2/3 of SF's population ... and SF is a little, tiny city in the great scheme of things.

[defiler]

Re: Manchester

True, but Manchester is now a sprawling conurbation (and I thought I'd never use that word after Higher Geography!), with an area of around 500 sq mi, and a population of about 2.75 million.

[Gio Ciampa]

Re: Manchester

I'll wager that has only been done so that both the "Manchester" football teams can claim to actually be inside... (as opposed to Trafford, and wherever the Etihad is)

[defiler]

Re: Manchester

Wow - a downvote for a fact that can be independently verified. We really do live in a post-truth world.

Manchester has glommed into surrounding towns and cities so that you can drive between them in one massive urban area. Okay, it's called Greater Manchester, but focusing on The City of Manchester is like looking at Los Angeles, focusing on The City of Los Angeles, and regarding The City of Beverly Hills as a separate place, and Glendale, and Compton, and Santa Monica etc etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Manchester

That's like saying that "The City of London" isn't very big... completely missing the point.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Manchester

If you think that capsule looks small, have a look at one of the Mercury capsules sometime. Though I don't know if any made it this side of the Atlantic. They're not just small, but ludicrously small.

I saw one at Kennedy Space Centre. Along with the Saturn V they've got. Which is ludicrously big.

[werdsmith]

Re: Manchester

In the rocket garden at Kennedy visitor sensor there is a gemini capsule mockup that you can climb into and try for size.

[defiler]

Re: Manchester

Saw the Mercury Redstone at JSC near Houston. It was like three of the bins you get outside restaurants stacked up with a cone on the top. Teeny thing. I was astonished. Would take some balls to go up on one. And some patience to stay in one for nearly a day and a half like Gordo Cooper. I cramp up just thinking about that.

And your right, the Saturn V next to it is truly gargantuan.

[defiler]

Re: Manchester

And your right, the Saturn V next to it is truly gargantuan.

"you're"

And I'm too late to edit it, so it makes me twitch. Damn.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Manchester

Don't worry. It could of happened to anyone. It's nothing to loose sleep over...

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Manchester

Yeah, it was that rouge key on the keyboard :-)

[defiler]

Re: Manchester

You know I hate you both, right?

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Manchester

Glad to be of service.

Share and enjoy!

[Blockchain commentard]

I can see the UK space agency re-using these capsules for our manned space program. What do you mean we don't have a manned mission planned?

[Alister]

Why is it in London?

It may upset the southerners, but Britain's National Space Centre is in Leicester.

[jake]

Why? You know the answer to that.

But just in case somebody's not paying attention: Political Graft.

[BebopWeBop]

Re: Why? You know the answer to that.

Political Graft.

Do you mean that it must be graft when London/Surrey does not get it? And before anyone takes an uninformed swipe (others are welcome), I do know where Surry Sats came from - one of my friends was a 'mission controller' - up at odd times of the night using a BBC B as a data logger :-) That dates me......

[Anonymous Coward]

which is basically just a crappy tourist attraction and not a "real" facility ...

[defiler]

But it might be a better tourist attraction if London hadn't nicked all the good stuff.

[GruntyMcPugh]

The Skylark Raven sounding rocket that's on display at the National Space Centre, Leicester, was in crates, down in the basement of the Uni Physics Dept when I worked there. It was a remnant from a bygone era, when a PhD at Leicester could see you design and build an instrument, and launch it a couple of times atop one of said rockets, from Woomera. One chap who got his PhD at Leicester went back to the states and became an astronaut, crewing several shuttle missions. He used to visit from time to time, and show us his personal video cam footage taken in orbit. He then took us to the pub, and destroyed us playing pub skittles.

[jake]

"But it might be a better tourist attraction if London hadn't nicked all the good stuff."

You could say that about tourist attractions all over the world.

[defiler]

I was thinking that as I typed it.

[GruntyMcPugh]

@AC Not really, no.

The National Space Centre was a project run, in part, by Prof Alan Wells from the University of Leicester Physics Dept (which at the time had X-Ray Astronomy, Astronomy, and Earth Observation Depts) and the National Lottery. It still has ties with the University of Leicester's Space Research Centre, and provides science workshops for schoolkids to encourage STEM.

A new, totally non tourist Space Park is being built in a nearby plot, which also has ties with the University of Leicester's Space Research Centre. Plus of course there's the actual University of Leicester's Space Research Centre, on the campus at Leicester University.

So the tourist part is for tourists, but, understandably, tourists aren't allowed in the clean rooms, where satellite parts are assembled, nor to shoulder surf the PhDs and Post Docs while they process satellite data.

I quite like the 'tourist attraction' part myself, it's got some space junk, and who doesn't like that.

That reminds, me,.... I should arrange to go for beers with the folks I used to work with at the Space Research Centre.

[jmch]

"Why is it in London?"

Because UK is one of the biggest 'culprits' (along with France) of the idea that everything worthwhile should be located in the capital, and everything outside the capital is a neanderthal hinterland.

[Anonymous Coward]

<waves />

Hello from a neanderthal... Please could you not confuse the heathen northerners with us.

We are a distinct subspecies, and proud of it.

Many thanks.

[TWB]

@jmch Larndun

I live in London and like living here and think it is a great place, but I fully agree with your sentiment.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nice to see a British astronaut and with a British flag on his arm.

Most of them decide to become American citizens :/

[BebopWeBop]

Well to be accurate, they generally become US citizens first..... on the basis that the country used to have a serious government funded the program. I suspect even now, a US passport is essential to fly in US birds of whatever funding.

[Swiss Anton]

"enjoyed a bacon sandwich"

PIGS IN SPAAAAACE, well OK its more of an ex pig.

[BebopWeBop]

Hamlet, the space opera

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean that it travelled the UK

and didn't get 'tagged'????

Wonderful.

The [redacted] numskulls who seem to delight in tagging everything in sight are really a blot on society. Some railway coaches that a group of friends of mine had lovingly resored got tagged two days after they were put back into service. That cost them more than £500 for a repaint. No doubt that they will be back soon. I'd like to tag them with my big heavy work boots but then I'd be the one going to jail.

[adam 40]

Have we reached Peak Peake?

If someone could do a graph, I would take a peek.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Have we reached Peak Peake?

Are you having a fit of pique about the peak of interest in Peake? Perhaps the jealousy has left you feeling peaky? Or has peeking at the Peake peak merelely piqued your interest in picking apart the piquant public profession of Peake-mania?

[adam 40]

Re: Have we reached Peak Peake?

Are you taking the peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeake?

[Allan George Dyer]

At the National Railway Museum?

Are they planning to put it on Stephenson's Rocket?

[Anonymous Coward]

Space capsules in Manchester?

Sounds like a Brexit "emergency escape" vehicle if things go really wrong.