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ISS Expedition 9 Crew Finally Returns to Earth

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sun Oct 24, 2004 09:57 AM
from the sorry-we're-late dept.
Space
neutron_p writes "International Space Station Expedition 9 crewmembers, Commander Gennady Padalka and NASA Science Officer Mike Fincke landed on target in the steppes of Kazakhstan at 8:36 p.m. EDT Saturday after 188 days in space."
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  • wow. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quasar1999 (520073) on Sunday October 24 2004, @10:01AM (#10614012) Journal
    That's almost as impressive as surviving a flight from New York to LA... in fact, I think they might even have been allowed a knife and fork for their inflight meal... ;)
    • Sure that surviving a flight from NY to LA is that easy? :)
    • Right... so you are saying that reentering the earths atmosphere at about mach 26 with enough kinetic energy to vapourise every single part of the spacecraft, leaving a plasma trail behind and landing safely on the ground, is as dangerous as watching the inflight entertainment to LA?

      Well, I've been bored, but never bored to death.

      These astronauts in a Soyuz face a 1% death rate (2% for Shuttle astronauts), and you are laughing at them...

    • It's not supposed to be that impressive, although it is much more impressive that that. It is just interesting news.

  • Welcome my country! (Score:5, Funny)

    by phaze3000 (204500) on Sunday October 24 2004, @10:03AM (#10614020) Homepage
    Hello ISS crewmen, I am Borat [channel4.com], welcome my country!

  • First congradulations and glad you are back safe. However I am curious as to their state of health. Space has no gravity, and the environment provides little resistence for your muscles. I remember reading somewhere that your muscles literally waste away from lack of use in space. Since they spent a lengthy time up in space, how are they finding the adjustment to earth gravity again? Is this health issue a barrier to long space flight?

    • Re:Health? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If the government wants to research muscle wastage and ill health they should save themselves a few billion and round-up some Sunday slashdotters.

      • Re:Health? (Score:2, Informative)

        by henni16 (586412)
        That is not that far fetched; last year there was an experiment at the Freie Universität Berlin about possible physiological and psycholocigal effects of (long time ) space travel.
        I googled for an english article [esa.int] about the experiment.

    • Re:Health? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Space has no gravity,"

      So how does the Earth orbit the Sun? I'm tired of that particular bit of ignorance. There's a lot of gravity in earth orbit. That's what keeps things there!
      • ANY two bodies with mass will have a gravitational force between them and will attract each other, so the Earth is actually "pulling" the Sun towards it. However, since the Sun has a much larger mass than the Earth, it appears that the Earth rotates around the Sun.

        The actual law is F=GmM/(r^2), so when the astronauts are on Earth, r is small and F (the gravitational force) is large. When they are up in orbit, r is orders of magnitude higher, so F is smaller. Thus, they are still being pulled towards the E

      • The problem is not so much a lack of gravity, but rather that the astro- and cosmonauts have been falling for more than 180 days.

    • Re:Health? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by henni16 (586412)
      AFAIK they have something like Hometrainers and stuff up there to slow that effect down - or they had to power their batteries by cycling ;-)
    • They spent 188 days in space. The longest stay in space was 438 days, by a Russian cosmonaut aboard Mir. He's still alive and well as far as I'm aware.

  • Good Job (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Space_Soldier (628825) <not4_u@hotmail.com> on Sunday October 24 2004, @10:14AM (#10614057)
    I guess it is good to be back. Now, they must get used to Earth again. I wonder if the 4 hours of exercise per day they must do in orbit is enough for them to walk on Earth without feeling exausted.

  • Shuttle Visit (Score:4, Insightful)

    by HedRat (613308) on Sunday October 24 2004, @10:27AM (#10614098)
    They said that the new crew is getting ready for the first Shuttle visit since the accident. I'm glad the shuttle will be flying again.

    • Re:Shuttle Visit (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If I were an astronaut, I'd prefer to be going in the Soyuz - FAR better safety record.
    • Although it's really good news that shuttle fleet will fly again, it's actually not for long...
      A pity, shuttles are very old now and none are in production to replace them.

  • In other space related news... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by praedictus (61731) on Sunday October 24 2004, @11:12AM (#10614290) Journal
    Brazil launched its first successful rocket Saturday from their Alcantarao base in Maranhao. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3948531.stm [bbc.co.uk] The two stage rocket, VSB-30, reached a maximum height of 250 km Good to see their program getting back on its feet after last years disaster http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/brazil_failur e_030822.htm [space.com] which killed 21 of their top people
  • I was following the story of the malfunctioning oxygen generator, and how the ISS crew was working around it by using up the reserve O2 supply. Then, the story fell out of sight.

    Did they ever fix it? Or at least discover why it wasn't working? Dunno 'bout you, but I'd sure feel less than safe going to a station with low reserves and no working air supply. I'd hate to be there, depending on NASA getting their act together for a replacement generator for my survival.

    • Re:US-Russian Cooperation (Score:5, Interesting)

      by lxt (724570) on Sunday October 24 2004, @10:59AM (#10614241) Journal
      "At this point, the International Space Station (ISS) is just a photo opportunity for the press" Couldn't agree more - in an article yesterday in a UK broadsheet (might have been the Times, can't really remember) it stated "the new crew will be researching AIDS vaccine"...my immediate thought was that the crew would probably be a bit too busy trying to repair the station, and this was just an attempt to get Joe Public to believe the ISS was at the "cutting edge" of research...

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