ForumGarden

That's TMA-11, the one which came down today by a rather more direct route than intended but all three crew are safe - a Russian, a Korean and an American. It came down steeper (on ballistic re-entry rather than the planned atmospheric re-entry) so the crew had far higher deceleration to cope with, around 10G rather than the more usual 4G. They walked away from it.

http://ruspace.blogspot.com/2008/01/soy ... cause.html is interesting, it's the translated report on why the previous Soyuz did the same thing last year. This makes the third out of 11 to come down fast.

What I've not understood so far is why the landing this time was 20 minutes later than anticipated, you'd think a hot fast landing would put it ahead of time.

Anyhow, well done all concerned. I think they build these Soyuz landing vehicles like armoured heat-resistant bricks.

Wow! Missed this completely. Thanks.

How much different is this vehicle to the one which docked with Apollo? That was back a long time and they look superficially alike.

spot;842401 wrote: How much different is this vehicle to the one which docked with Apollo? That was back a long time and they look superficially alike.


As a total aside, do you remember those awful cigarettes they sold to commemorate the event?

I remember buying them in Warsaw, they were startling innovations compared to what was usually available. What was usually available resembled Passing Clouds in several respects, the loose packing being not the least of them.

spot;842418 wrote: I remember buying them in Warsaw, they were startling innovations compared to what was usually available. What was usually available resembled Passing Clouds in several respects, the loose packing being not the least of them.


The Passing Clouds had much to commend them as did the Craven A - it was the Woodbine that I found hard to take.

I generally stuck to the Gold Leaf (common me) when I couldn't get the Freybourg and Treyer (with pretensions)

Ah, these back around 1980 were the celebratory Apollo-Soyuz brand, I've not seen a pack of those for so long they're probably museum exhibits.