Welcome Home Expedition 17
Expedition 17 to the International Space Station began April 8 when Cosmonauts Serge Volkov and Oleg Kononenko joined astronaut Garrett Reisman from Expedition 16. Volkov (second-generation cosmonaut) and Kononenko returned to Kazakhstan October 24. During their stay they welcomed Richard Garriott, second-generation American astronaut. A ship's bell is traditionally used by navies to welcome people aboard. Monday, in a private ceremony at Johnson Space Center, veteran astronaut Michael Foale rang the bell.
Johnson Space Center Director Mike Coats welcomes the crew, who are sitting to the right in matching shirts. From the left are Commander Sergei Volkov, Flight Engineers Oleg Kononenko and Garrett Reisman. Greg Chamitoff, who joined this crew on May 31, is still onboard ISS. Garrett presented gifts to his shipmates--a CD of 1980's heavy metal for Sergei. Oleg received a pint of his favourite ice cream, Rocky Road from the Kroger's market near JSC. In his remarks, Garrett was struck by how thin and fragile Earth's atmosphere is.
Their children present them with flowers. Coats remarked with conviction that their generation will walk on the Moon and Mars.
Check out the new Carnival of Space!
Labels: Space Station
posted by L. Riofrio at 1:48 AM
3 Comments:
Another brick in the wall, this one on the extreme unlikelihood of our position in the standard universe.
Carl, I appreciate your finding all these bricks in the wall. Science needs good bricklayers.
The whole situation reminds me of the search for WMDs. After convincing themselves that they existed, people kept being convinced that they were right around the corner despite all evidence to the contrary.
I expect that there will be famous current physicists, who will go to their graves 20+ years from now, still believing that they were right and we were wrong.
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