"I would like to tell
(Brazilians) that despite the fact that I will be the only Brazilian in space,
I feel the support and prayers from 180 million Brazilians who will be there
with me,'' Brazilian air force Lt. Col. Marcos Cesar Pontes told reporters.
Pontes, who is currently
making final preparations for the flight at the Star City astronaut training
center outside Moscow, said that he was confident he would be ready for the historic mission.
"We are on a very tough
training schedule. ... We are using every minute to train. I am certain that by
the start time we and the equipment will be ready for the success of the
mission,'' he said.
Brazil and Russia signed an
agreement for the space mission during Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva's visit to Moscow last October.
The trip is scheduled for
March 29.
The Brazilian, who will
blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with Russian astronaut
Pavel Vinogradov and U.S cosmonaut Jeffrey Williams, will spend eight days on
the International Space Station before returning to Earth with the outgoing
two-man crew.
Pontes began training in
1998 in the United States and was scheduled to fly to the space station aboard
a U.S. space shuttle, but those plans were scrapped after the U.S. National
Aeronautics and Space Administration suspended shuttle flights in the wake of
the 2003 Columbia explosion.
Following the U.S. shuttle
disaster, the Latin American nation began discussions with Russia about the
possibility of Pontes traveling aboard a Russian rocket.
During a November 2004
visit to Brazil, Russian President Vladimir Putin also agreed that Russia would
help Brazil resume its space program and restore its rocket-launching base,
which was destroyed by a rocket
explosion in 2003 that killed 21 people.
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