Marooned on space station, astronauts showed man fit for Mars

[Nottingham]

Marooned on space station, astronauts showed man fit for Mars
Reuters News Service

WASHINGTON - Astronauts stranded for two extra months aboard the International Space Station after the shuttle Columbia accident showed that humans are strong enough to make the long trip to Mars, one of the expedition's members said today.

Donald Pettit, one of three members of the station's Expedition Six, said he and his two crew-mates who spent 161 days on the space station inadvertently demonstrated humans' fitness for interplanetary travel.

"The whole experience had an uncanny resemblance to a trip to and landing on Mars," Pettit said at a briefing at NASA headquarters, referring to the extended stay in orbit and the return to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz space taxi, which landed in Kazakhstan on May 3.

"We were on orbit in a reduced-gravity environment for 5-1/2 months, about as long as a one-way trip to Mars," Pettit said. "We got in our own vehicle, piloted it down to Earth through an air-brake maneuver ... Without any help from the ground we secured the spacecraft, we opened the hatch, we crawled out ...

more...
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory2/2127422

Well this is really interesting! I wonder if the Mars people will be Democrats or Republicans! or Independants! :bounce:

[aquart]

1. God bless the intrepid explorers.

Where would we be without them.

[w13rd0]

2. The necessities of adapting to a "hostile" environment...

...will be a catalyst for entirely new ways of approaching sociology and politics, imo...

[Nottingham]

4. That would be so kewl! A whole New Planet too!

Plenty of Real Estate for everybody! :bounce:

[w13rd0]

9. No, see...

...one of the new developments would be a new way of looking at wants and needs. Surviving in a hostile environ would require that "real estate" be more communal in nature.

[LiberalVoice]

3. Not Repugs

they would be too busy trying to send all the gays, muslims, ethinic minorites and all the rest of the dems.

[tsipple]

5. Didn't the Russian Spend More Time in Space?

I'm all for Houston-based jingoism and all, but weren't there some longer duration crews on Mir?

[Resistance Is Futile]

10. Mir crews

There were longer duration flights on Mir, but those crews were not able to exit their spacecraft unaided. Mirs crews were generally carried out of their landing vehicles.

The fact that these guys were able to secure and exit their spacecraft without outside help, as small a feat as that might seem, really is significant.

[Kemet]

6. "red" planet

"I wonder if the Mars people will be Democrats or Republicans! or Independants! "

How about communists on the red planet?
:)

[alfredo]

7. Fosterites

No wait, that is from someone else.

why yes, it's bourbon over ice 9.

I'm really getting confused.

Back on topic
Cool to see they saw what was in front of their eyes. So they know that they can make it to mars, but what about the return trip?

[Dogmudgeon]

8. Space brings out all political kinds

Though generally, it shakes out the idiots. You get very few Rectal Right ranters, and the pro-space lefties are not the technophobes we're painted to be.

But almost all the Libertarians are into space development, and it's given the movement a very pronounced laissez-faire economic spin. It's understandable, since we do need to get NGOs into space development, but the underlying philosophy has become a kind of economic fundamentalism.

A certain ... counterbalance ... is needed.

--bkl