carrot red
08-08-2003, 12:36 PM
Russians Say Space Wedding to Be First and Last
Moscow- It may well be a giant leap for man and wife, but for Russia it is one step too far.
This weekend, Yuri Malenchenko, commander of the International Space Station, will be the first man to get married from space. Russia said on Friday the planning had been so fraught, it would never allow its spacemen to do so again.
"I think that we will have the next crew sign a contract with a provision that they will not get married during their mission," said Sergei Gorbunov, Russian space agency spokesman.
"After all this has been a strange series of events."
Malenchenko, 41, is to wed U.S. citizen Ekaterina Dmitriev, 26, exchanging vows by space telephone with his bride in Houston, the home of U.S. space mission control.
The cosmic couple will be separated vertically from each other by 240 miles in the first marriage ceremony to stray beyond earth's atmosphere. Despite the headaches for Russia's space agency, this has evoked some national pride.
"Yuri Gagarin was first in space. We had the first woman in space. We had the first tourist in space. And now this is another first," said Gorbunov.
So, what's next now that space tourism is developing?
In other news, a Russian mother pleads for her son to stay in Guantanamo. She says that conditions in Russian jails are so awful that she would prefer her son remain in the "humane" conditions of the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
"At Guantanamo they treat him humanely, the conditions are fine."
Her son Andrei Bakhitov is one of eight Russian detainees, and the newspaper quoted a letter he wrote to his mother.
"I think that there is not even a health resort in Russia on the level of this place," the letter said.
Who was it that was complaining recently about the bad conditions the prisoners were kept in there?
Moscow- It may well be a giant leap for man and wife, but for Russia it is one step too far.
This weekend, Yuri Malenchenko, commander of the International Space Station, will be the first man to get married from space. Russia said on Friday the planning had been so fraught, it would never allow its spacemen to do so again.
"I think that we will have the next crew sign a contract with a provision that they will not get married during their mission," said Sergei Gorbunov, Russian space agency spokesman.
"After all this has been a strange series of events."
Malenchenko, 41, is to wed U.S. citizen Ekaterina Dmitriev, 26, exchanging vows by space telephone with his bride in Houston, the home of U.S. space mission control.
The cosmic couple will be separated vertically from each other by 240 miles in the first marriage ceremony to stray beyond earth's atmosphere. Despite the headaches for Russia's space agency, this has evoked some national pride.
"Yuri Gagarin was first in space. We had the first woman in space. We had the first tourist in space. And now this is another first," said Gorbunov.
So, what's next now that space tourism is developing?
In other news, a Russian mother pleads for her son to stay in Guantanamo. She says that conditions in Russian jails are so awful that she would prefer her son remain in the "humane" conditions of the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
"At Guantanamo they treat him humanely, the conditions are fine."
Her son Andrei Bakhitov is one of eight Russian detainees, and the newspaper quoted a letter he wrote to his mother.
"I think that there is not even a health resort in Russia on the level of this place," the letter said.
Who was it that was complaining recently about the bad conditions the prisoners were kept in there?