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Soyuz delivers three men to the space station BY SPACEFLIGHT NOW Posted: October 3, 2005 A Russian Soyuz capsule swooped up and docked to the International Space Station this morning, delivering the new Expedition 12 resident crew and an American businessman flying as third tourist to the orbiting laboratory.
Two orbits later, hatches between the capsule and station swung open, allowing Expedition 12 commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery Tokarev to float into their new microgravity home in space. The duo will spend six months living aboard the station. Tourist Greg Olsen is paying millions of dollars to the Russian space agency for his grand adventure, which includes 8 days on the station. He is scheduled for return to Earth on October 10 with the outgoing Expedition 11 crew. Commander Sergei Krikalev and flight engineer John Phillips will ride back home in their TMA-6 capsule after 179 days in space.
"In its very broadest sense, our goals are first to maintain the operational state of the ISS; to conduct research that is targeted toward enhancing our capability to live and work in space, because we have to be able to do that, and more and more we need to be able to do that with less reliance on the ground if we're going to leave low Earth orbit; and third, we would like to see expansion of this unique laboratory environment so that future crews will have an even more capable space station to work in," McArthur said in a pre-flight interview. Expedition 12 was supposed to host the resumption of station construction via space shuttle missions. However, continuing problems with external fuel tank foam and Hurricane Katrina's damage to key shuttle facilities along the Gulf Coast are expected to delay any assembly missions until after McArthur and Tokarev finish their flight. Studying the impacts of spaceflight on the human body will continue on Expedition 12, as McArthur described before his launch: "We're looking at a couple of areas. One is how we maintain adequate human performance. If you think about it, if you've seen pictures of crews, particularly returning on the Soyuz, they are, after a long stay on board ISS, they are lifted out of the capsule, if it's sitting upright -- if it's on its side again, they're sort of helped out -- immediately put in chairs, and then carried to a medical evacuation tent. The crews are discouraged from trying to walk immediately after landing. It's because our muscles are deconditioned and our sense of balance is no longer effective. It's very easy to get dizzy after having been in space for a long period of time due to the effects of gravity on the inner ear. "Well, that's going to be pretty tough if, after a six- or nine-month flight, you land on Mars and you can't stand up. So, we really, if we want to leave low Earth orbit ... we really need to have the techniques and the tools, the exercise protocols, the medical procedures, that will ensure that when that crew lands on Mars, just a tremendous distance from the Earth, that they are physically fit to start working quickly. One, because, I mean, what a tremendous adventure! We really want to get the maximum benefit out of that, out of what will be a tremendous human accomplishment to set foot on another planet, and we want the crews to be healthy. "So, what are we doing, to address that? Well, let's talk about what some of the effects are of being in space. You know, you walk around and all your muscles are getting some workout. Well, in space -- and this is a good thing about being up there -- you don't walk around: we float around. And it is so much fun, and it's a pleasant environment, but your muscles immediately begin to atrophy. And so we need to figure out how to maintain conditioning. "There are two things we do on orbit: one is, we do exercise almost religiously -- we spend a lot of time each day exercising. In order to understand the effects, or the effectiveness, of that exercise, we do a lot of testing preflight; we'll do some testing on orbit; we do a lot of testing postflight. There's an experiment in which I hope to participate called Foot. My right leg and running shoes on each foot are instrumented. I've got muscle activity sensors in various places on my leg and little boxes recording data. It makes me look a little bit like the Borg from Star [Trek]: The Next Generation. What we're trying to do is measure the effectiveness of all your activity on orbit and compare it to your normal activities on the ground, to see how close they are to providing a similar workout, a similar activity level, to what we have on the ground. "Now there are some other effects that can be even more serious on orbit. One is that in the absence of the stress of gravity, your musculoskeletal system, you know, besides the muscles becoming weaker, the bones, your actual skeleton, the bones start losing minerals over time, in some of the major weight-bearing bones, because they don't see the stress to which they're normally exposed, they're losing calcium, they become brittler. You know, gosh, I'd hate to have really brittle bones and kind of hop off the ladder on Mars and have one break. So we're studying the effects on bone density. "But now where's that calcium going? Well, it's going into the blood, filtered through the kidneys, excreted in the urine. OK, minerals, your blood, kidneys, urine -- you know, if you've ever had a relative or know someone who's developed kidney stones, that all ought to sound familiar. We're concerned that people in weightlessness have a higher risk of developing kidney stones. I've heard they're pretty painful. Three months on the way to Mars I'd certainly hate to be the astronaut who has developed a kidney stone. "So on this mission, we're participating in an experiment called Renal Stone. Some of us are taking potassium citrate, some are taking a placebo, and we're going to measure the effectiveness of the potassium citrate on orbit to try to determine if in fact it is effective at reducing the substances in your blood that may lead to the formation of kidney stones." McArthur says completion assembly of the station is a necessary step on the way to future lunar exploration missions and eventually voyages to Mars. "We don't have the answers we need in order to send people to Mars yet. We know a lot of the questions, but we need to have the space station to find the answers to those questions, to keeping people healthy for a long duration on orbit. As I mentioned before, I think we cheat a little bit right now -- we launch from Earth, we spend a long time on orbit, and we go back to Earth where we have this cadre of wonderful people there to scoop us up and keep us warm and safe. It's almost like we're the child that's peeked out of the womb, gotten a little bit scared, and we've gone back in where it's nice and safe and comfortable. Well, we need to give birth to true interplanetary space exploration. And, I would say the space station is the midwife that's going to allow us to do that. "We need the space station to look at how we are going to get the answers to those questions: I have mentioned how much more capable I think the crew is with three people than with two. How about if we could go more than that -- what if we can go to four, five, or six? We do spend a lot of time right now maintaining and building our laboratory. This is a pretty unique laboratory. In most places I would assume that if you went, let's say, to the [Texas] Medical Center here [in Houston] and that they were working on a new laboratory. My guess is people don't go in and start doing research in that laboratory until it's complete. "Well, we're doing research, and we're still building our laboratory. So those of us that are up there can't devote our time 100 percent to answering the questions, because we have to spend some time to taking out the trash, some time to changing the oil in the car. But if we can go to a larger crew, then we should always have a significant number of people who we can devote to the research. And I think we'll get answers to the questions we need much more quickly. "But, we've got to do two things: We've got to finish the space station, and then we have to operate it. Then we'll be ready to give birth to interplanetary exploration."
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A Russian Soyuz spacecraft safely launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome Friday night with the International Space Station's twelfth resident crew and a paying tourist aboard.
The seven astronauts of space shuttle Discovery's return to flight mission recently gathered for a public celebration of their mission. They narrated an entertaining movie of highlights and personal footage taken during the mission.
The Boeing Delta 2 rocket roars off Cape Canaveral's launch pad 17A carrying the first modernized Global Positioning System satellite for the U.S. Air Force.
NASA unveils the agency's blueprint for building the future spacecraft and launch vehicles needed for mankind's return to the lunar surface in the next decade.
Astronomers announce the detection by NASA's Swift satellite of the most distant explosion yet, a gamma-ray burst from the edge of the visible universe, during this media teleconference held Monday, September 12. (54min 01sec file)
The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has reached the summit of Husband Hill, returning a spectacular panorama from the hilltop in the vast Gusev Crater. Scientists held a news conference Sept. 1 to reveal the panorama and give an update on the twin rover mission.
To gain a new perspective on space shuttle Discovery's ascent and gather additional imagery for the return to flight mission, NASA dispatched a pair of high-flying WB-57 aircraft equipped with sharp video cameras in their noses.
When space shuttle Discovery launched its two solid-fuel booster rockets were equipped with video cameras, providing dazzling footage of separation from the external fuel tank, their free fall and splashdown in the sea.
VIDEO:
SOYUZ DOCKS TO THE STATION 
