"Unfortunately, some of Mir's good traditions are not observed onboard the ISS," remarked flight engineer Yuri Baturin. "When visiting crews docked to Mir, the station main crews had always asked the visitors what they would like to have for lunch or dinner, even before the hatches separating the station from Soyuz were opened. When newcomers entered the Russian station, warm food had already been waiting for them."
According to Baturin, he, Musabayev and Tito had to wait for three hours after entering the ISS for a meal. "Its too bad that even Yuri Usachev, Russian commander of the ISS, had apparently given up his traditional Russian hospitality to observe the U.S. developed rules and procedures," said Baturin.
Baturin and Musabayev took the lack of traditional welcoming bread and salt onboard the station, as one of the most eloquent signs of U.S. dominance in the outpost.
Smooth flight, less than comfortable accomodations
Other than a few glitches in the guidance and navigation system of the Soyuz TM-32 spacecraft, the flight to the station was smooth, Musabayev told SPACE.com.
"
.""It is like a big 100-meter- (328-foot-) long sausage that can be easily looked through," Musabayev said. "Unlike Mir, which had a complex configuration that provided its individual crew members with the necessary privacy, ISS gives no such privacy at all."
Musabayev said he felt especially uncomfortable by the close location of the waste management system to the dining table.
Baturin believes that the Soyuz spacecraft is not adequately used during its flight to the station. "We have two days of autonomous flight to the station," he told SPACE.com. "Multiply these two days by 15 years of ISS operation, with two Soyuz missions per year and you will get almost two months of wasted precious time."
"Such taxi flights must be filled with experiments. Hanging in the sleeping bags is a loss of time," stressed Baturin.
"Life in the ISS is concentrated in [the] service module (SM)," he said. "It is quite understandable since [the] SM is a living space for the crews. The main and the visiting crews spend most [of their] time in [the] SM."
According to Baturin, the U.S. segment must be more extensively used. "The main advantage of this segment is that it has not been filled with equipment yet. We could conduct many experiments in it," said Baturin.
The crew performed 11 major experiments overall during its short taxi mission.
Space tourist was no problem for the crew
"Dennis was no problem at all," stressed Musabayev. "There were some problems during our flight to the station, which were caused by Titos adaptation to weightlessness."
According to Musabayev, Tito became sick due to weightlessness approximately four hours after liftoff. "Unfortunately, hygienic bags were not properly packed in Soyuz, so we had to use hygienic napkins," Musabayev said. "After we had boarded the station, the bags were within our close reach. But we did not need them any longer, since Dennis was successfully undertaking certain countermeasures against motion sickness."
Mission commander Musabayev said overall, the flight went very smoothly. "I would not say that there were no problems at all. Dennis scratched his head and [he] had problems getting back into his flightsuit before leaving the station. But such minor things may happen to any rookie cosmonaut."
Baturin told reporters that Tito used up 25 of the 45 rolls of camera film he brought for his trip.
advertisement
