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.

FMI: www.nasa.gov