Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson, Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko and South Korean guest cosmonaut So-Yeon Yi undocked in Soyuz TMA-11 and landed safely on 19/4, but it was another ballistic re-entry and they were 475 km short of the landing zone! The previous Soyuz flight, TMA-10, had the same problem, as did Expedition 6 in TMA-1. The crew endured up to 10.5 G’s briefly, though they were generally unharmed. There was about a half-hour delay between landing and re-establishment of communications, which also caused some worry! (The Expedition 16 thread from landing onwards at NASASpaceflight.com covers the landing.)
Also, Russian Federal Space Agency chief Anatolii Perminov made some rather tactless remarks about women on board being bad luck:
Later, Perminov was asked about the presence of two women on the Soyuz, and referred to a naval superstition that having women aboard a ship was bad luck. “You know in Russia, there are certain bad omens about this sort of thing, but thank God that everything worked out successfully,” he said. “Of course in the future, we will work somehow to ensure that the number of women will not surpass” the number of men. Challenged by a reporter, Perminov responded: “This isn’t discrimination. I’m just saying that when a majority [of the crew] is female, sometimes certain kinds of unsanctioned behavior or something else occurs, that’s what I’m talking about.”
– “Astronauts rescued as capsule lands off-target”, MSNBC.com, 19/4.
Maybe he was joking (and the superstition is an old one), but Peggy Whitson probably won’t be impressed! I ranted about archaic attitudes to women in my 16/10/2007 entry.
