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ISS Expedition 9 Crew Finally Returns to Earth

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the sorry-we're-late dept.

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."

36 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. wow. by Quasar1999 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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... ;)

    --

    ---
    Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
    1. Re:wow. by telax · · Score: 1

      Sure that surviving a flight from NY to LA is that easy? :)

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      telax - Just another vim and c hacker.
    2. Re:wow. by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 1
      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...

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    3. Re:wow. by Quasar1999 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      oh lighten up... it's called a joke...

      Yes reentering the earths atmosphere is a lot more dangerous... but there'd be a 100% death rate if we all couldn't laugh every once in a while... sheesh.

      --

      ---
      Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
    4. Re:wow. by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 1

      Yes, it has been called a joke.

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    5. Re:wow. by Achorny · · Score: 1

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

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      @ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopq rstuvwxyz{|}~
  2. Welcome my country! by phaze3000 · · Score: 5, Funny
    Hello ISS crewmen, I am Borat, welcome my country!

    --
    Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
    1. Re:Welcome my country! by Borat+Sagdiyev · · Score: 1

      Hello friends! I am real Borat. Welcome to my country Kazakhstan. I hope you will like. I like!. Jagshemash.

    2. Re:Welcome my country! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Check out http://www.webgeordie.co.uk/borat/broadwater.htm for a response from James Broadwater, Republican, to one of his most famous interviews. Hilarious!

    3. Re:Welcome my country! by apanap · · Score: 1

      and this stunt pulled by HBO is just one more reason why I believe that the liberal, anti-God media needs to be brought under the strict control of the FCC, and that as soon as possible

      Seriously, do Americans actually VOTE for people like this!?

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      Give me a job. Please?
    4. Re:Welcome my country! by Rolo+Tomasi · · Score: 1

      Let's just hope they watch out for giants from Turkmenistan. Last I heard Azamat Bagatov still isn't able to walk.

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      Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
    5. Re:Welcome my country! by superyooser · · Score: 1

      When we say "God bless America," we really mean it.

    6. Re:Welcome my country! by phaze3000 · · Score: 1
      He shoot dog and peasant.

      This is not something you do in your country?

      --
      Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
    7. Re:Welcome my country! by Fishstick · · Score: 1

      >Seriously, do Americans actually VOTE for people like this!?

      In Mississippi, I guess they do. In addition to reigning-in the media (The media is necessary, but it shouldn't be evil), we need to get rid of gambling, homosexuals and pornography...

      http://www.jamesbroadwater.com/pornography.html

      We should all strongly oppose pornography, and strongly support the abolition of it. It influences and actively encourages people to engage in sex without the benefit of marriage (which is fornication), and encourages and influences married people to engage in sex outside of the bonds of their own marriages (which is adultery). Sex was created by God and is good - within marriage, but outside of marriage it is the known cause of all kinds of other moral and social problems, including unwed pregnancy, the hardship of single-parent families, an increase in poverty due to single parents having to raise their children alone, the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, the proliferation of strip clubs, prostitution, rape, and murder. Free speech does not include pornography, and the pornography "industry" must be brought to an end.

      --

      There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
      Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.

    8. Re:Welcome my country! by superyooser · · Score: 1

      There's nothing about censorship. Broadwater wanted the FCC to put an end the media's deceitful stunts, and of course, it is only the God-haters in the media that do such things.

  3. Re:Sending the Russians home by pe1rxq · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Because he went up in a Soyuz capsule???

    Jeroen

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  4. Health? by (SM)+Spacemonkey · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Health? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    2. Re:Health? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      "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!

    3. Re:Health? by Paster+Of+Muppets · · Score: 1
      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 Earth, but as they are in orbit, this "pulling" contributes to centripetal acceleration - hence, they orbit.

      Hope this clears up your "ignorance".

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      Due to lack of disk space this user has been discontinued
    4. Re:Health? by henni16 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      AFAIK they have something like Hometrainers and stuff up there to slow that effect down - or they had to power their batteries by cycling ;-)

    5. Re:Health? by henni16 · · Score: 2, Informative

      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 about the experiment.

    6. Re:Health? by orfanotna · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

    7. Re:Health? by bbc · · Score: 1

      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.

  5. Good Job by Space_Soldier · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  6. Re:Sending the Russians home by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    well.. maybe he would agree because he looked at the safety records and put 1 and 1 together.

    sojuz works.

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    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  7. Shuttle Visit by HedRat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Shuttle Visit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      If I were an astronaut, I'd prefer to be going in the Soyuz - FAR better safety record.

    2. Re:Shuttle Visit by apanap · · Score: 1

      The Expedition 10 crew is expected to leave ISS in April 2004.

      They have to be pretty annoyed after having waited for so long then...

      --
      Give me a job. Please?
    3. Re:Shuttle Visit by Anonym0us+Cow+Herd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Soyuz may have a better safety record, but it is far less effective than the Shuttle at keeping our aerospace contractors fat and happy.

      --
      The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
    4. Re:Shuttle Visit by WetCat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

  8. Re:US-Russian Cooperation by lxt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "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...

  9. In other space related news... by praedictus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Brazil launched its first successful rocket Saturday from their Alcantarao base in Maranhao. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3948531.stm 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 which killed 21 of their top people

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    Watashi wa chikyubutsurigakusha desu.
  10. What happened to the oxygen generator? by MsWillow · · Score: 1

    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.

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    Lemon curry?
    1. Re:What happened to the oxygen generator? by igny · · Score: 3, Interesting

      According to russian news sites, they fixed it. The culprit was a valve in the system which vents the H2 overboard.

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      In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
    2. Re:What happened to the oxygen generator? by MsWillow · · Score: 1

      Ahh, ok. Thanks. It would have been nice had the repair gotten at least some coverage here in the US, but that may be too much to ask for, given the proximity to elections :(

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      Lemon curry?