Wed, Oct 29, 2003
No Problem Finding These Astronauts
Among the
blood-pressure-raising factors of space travel are several that we
think about all the time. (What if the launch goes badly? What if
the food is no good? What if the deck of cards is incomplete? What
if the toilet backs up? What if re-entry isn't what we planned?)
However, there is one factor that, while always on the minds of the
astronauts and recovery teams, wasn't high on the list of Joe and
Suzie Public -- at least until Expedition 6 came home last
Spring: What if we land out in the middle of East
Nowhere [which is pretty much the description of an ideal
landing site, all things considered], and they can't find
us?
ESA Astronaut Pedro Duque (who made the round-trip to the ISS
for the crew exchange), plus homesick Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko
(top picture) and US Astronaut Ed Lu, who spent over six months on
the ISS, were probably thinking of their recovery more than
most crews, since the last space travelers, Nikolai Budarin, Ken
Bowersox and Don Pettit, were literally "off-radar" for several hours after
they made their safe landing.
Lu (below), we're told, was carrying a gift from a friend, a
pocket GPS. [I don't understand... If I were in that situation, I'd
prefer an ELT. I don't care if I know where I am -- I'd
want everybody else to know where I am --ed.]
No need, though: recovery, like the mission and the landing,
went like clockwork, and the two happy men are soon to reunite with
their families -- and Yuri is coming home to family he didn't have
when he left: he got married by proxy in August,
prompting some rules changes in the space agencies' personnel
manuals here on Earth.
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