Space Wedding Successful

The Llama King writes "Love transcends all, including gravity, the atmosphere and orbital altitudes. According to this story at the Houston Chronicle, "Yuri Malenchenko didn't let the fact that he's living aboard the international space station stop him from marrying his bride, Ekaterina Dmitriev." The bride was at Johnson Space Center near Houston, while the groom circled 240 miles above her. The honeymoon will have to wait."

Comments

Not yet

[A nonymous Coward]

I was under the impression that it's pretty easy to annul an uncomsummated marriage.

Pregnant pause

[m_chan]

That must have been one brutal pregnant pause to wait for the radio lag between "Do you take..." and the "I do". I wonder if for a second the thought passed through the poor guy's head..."Is she thinking about it?" I didn't see in the article where he was in orbit. Heck, instead of 380km he could have been more like 6,400 km away or so. Did they wait to do the ceremony until he was more or less overhead? I wonder if this is the farthest apart two people have been when they were married, other than when MJ married Lisa Marie Presley.

Marriages w/ a non-present party

[kaltkalt]

Many states allow this. The primary purpose is so people in the military who have been called to duty can marry their significant other left back at home ("Gee, I might get killed over here and never see you again... I want to get married now just in case I never get the chance to see you again....") So a serviceman over in Iraq can marry his girlfriend who is still here in the states. Proxies are allowed, too.

Doubtful.

[simetra]

Nah, those astronauts aren't like real people. Most are straight as an arrow - you have to be to be in good enough physical and mental shape to do that. Most are likely married. It's highly unlikely that on any given mission, there would be two willing and able participants. It's not like they recruit crack whores for astronauts. Maybe if a married couple were sent... maybe. I'm sure there's rules against cracking open a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon and seducing your fellow astronauts.

Though, it would be cool if some porn stars volunteered and were accepted on such a mission. Science would benefit, somehow, as would the world of entertainment.