An Orderly Account

About the Name

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent The-oph’ilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed. -- Luke 1:1-4

Relax, I know I’m not writing the New Testament here, but I will try to follow a few things closely. — Dick Sandlin

Syndicate

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Features

Long-term Spacers Return Home

Three spacemen (a Russian, an American, and a Canadian) landed safely on the steppe of Kazakhstan on October 11th. This NASA photo shows the three sitting in chairs outside their Soyuz capsule just minutes after their landing. The event was not widely publicized in the West and I found the story today on the NASA website. Two of the three men had spent 197 days in space, on Space Station Destiny (the International Space Station), before their landing near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan in their Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft at 10:32 a.m. local time.

Seated on the left in the photo is Canadian spaceflight participant Guy Laliberte, who spent nine days on the station after launching with Expedition 21 on September 30th. In the center is Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and on the right is NASA astronaut Michael Barratt. Padalka and Barratt arrived at the station in March to begin Expedition 19 then transitioned to the six-member Expedition 20 crew in May. Padalka commanded both Expedition crews and Barratt was flight engineer for Expedition 20.

The three flew back to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia outside Moscow for reunions with their families, and for Padalka and Barratt, the start of their reorientation to a gravity environment after almost seven months off the planet.

Is it just me or does the steppe in the picture behind them look like the surface of Mars, as seen by the rovers Spirit and Opportunity? Unfortunately, Spirit became embedded in soft soilat a site called “Troy” five months ago, more than five years into a mission on Mars that was originally scheduled to last for three months. The NASA photo above shows efforts to extract Spirit, using a mock-up to identify the best escape strategy. See the Free Spirit NASA page for more details.

As of Sol (Martian Day) 2042 (Oct. 21, 2009), Opportunity’s total odometry is 18,322.03 meters (11.39 miles). That works out to about 9 meters per day over a five-year period.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/29 at 08:16 PM