Soyuz Heads To Space Station With New Crew 36
An anonymous reader writes: Last night, a Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to deliver three astronauts to the International Space Station. Russia's Sergey Volkov, Denmark's Andreas Mogensen, and Kazakhstan's Aidyn Aimbetov reached orbit without incident, and they'll dock with the ISS in the wee hours of Friday morning. Mogensen and Aimbetov will only stay until 11 September, at which point they and Expedition 44 commander Gennady Padalka will undock and return to Earth. (Here's a neat time-lapse of changing a Soyuz craft's parking space at the ISS.) Padalka was in charge for the current expedition, but he'll be passing command of Expedition 45 to NASA's Scott Kelly. Kelly and Oleg Kornienko will soon reach the halfway point of their one-year mission at the space station. It's worth noting that this was the 500th rocket launch from the Gagarin launchpad at Baikonur.
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Uber Space Lift
Mogensen and Aimbetov will only stay until 11 Sept (Score:2, Interesting)
Does soyuz need 3 crew to dock? If not, what's the point of sending two up for such a short duration. Joy ride?
Seems it would be a better use of spare launch capacity to send provisions lost in the previous cargo outages.
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It is reasonable to assume that even astronauts need on-the-job training and experience.
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It costs pretty much the same amount to launch the thing with one person as three, so might as well give people from other countries a ride.
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The Danish crewman was bringing up some special Lego models that are going to be used as prizes in school competitions, but I'm surprised by the short duration as well...
http://www.theguardian.com/sci... [theguardian.com]
it seems his mission is a short one anyway...
http://blogs.esa.int/iriss/201... [esa.int]
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No, Soyuz can autodock, it doesn't need crew for that. In fact, Progress is basically an unmanned Soyuz without a reentry shield.
Re:Mogensen and Aimbetov will only stay until 11 S (Score:4, Insightful)
Most shuttle missions were only a couple weeks. You can get a lot done when you're highly trained and your Internet access is limited.
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Even if there were no other reasons, it would be a good idea to send the new people up on a short mission. I'm going to guess that people on long missions did short ones before.
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The Soyuz capsule has pretty much no spare volume for carrying cargo.
WWBD? (Score:2)
>> Kazakhstan's Aidyn Aimbetov
What would Borat do?
Worth noting (Score:5, Informative)
Other than the 500th launch, it's also worth noting that Andreas Mogensen is Denmark's first astronaut in space.
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Nobody cares. He's white! Hardly representative of Denmark's future. They should have picked a more diverse applicant, not that ancient 19th century crap.
Moreover, he'll be very unpopular in Denmark because he's holding himself above others. Jante Law negatively portrays and criticises individual success and achievement as unworthy and inappropriate. Scandinavian culture is collectivist and has a condescending attitude towards individualism and success - hallmarks of the American-style astronaut. He's
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Holy crap. What do you have against Denmark?
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I'm Danish, thanks. So yes, I have been there.
Have you grown up there? You seem to think the so-called Jante law is an actual written law the courts take into consideration and not just an antiquated ideal.
Have you watched Danish television in the past week leading up to the launch, all the interviews with Mogensen and his family?
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No, it's culture. Where did anyone say it was law? Danes call it Jante Law. The astronaut is clearly holding himself above others, that's an American trait. If Denmark doesn't reject him, it means they're just a bunch of hypocrites.
It would have been much better to have a non-white applicant for the job. How many did they even interview? Don't tell me Denmark doesn't have a diverse population, because it does. Such a great chance to show the world the future of Denmark, and they failed. :(
Re: Worth noting (Score:2)
Re: Worth noting (Score:2)
Soyuz parking move (Score:2)
I have seen a lot of talk and images about the Soyuz the moved to a different docking port. They say it was to make room for this new craft. But that doesn't make sense to me. Couldn't the newly arriving Soyuz just park wherever the last one moved to? I believe there are 4 ports that can accept a Soyuz (there is a Progress cargo ship currently occupying a port as well).
Re: Reason to celebtrate (Score:2)