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Author
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Topic: Shortest time between astronauts' spaceflights
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Headshot
Member Posts: 864
From: Vancouver, WA, USA
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 05-15-2013 10:01 AM
   
Tom Stafford flew two Gemini missions 170 days apart (Geminis 6 and 9A).Has any U.S. astronaut had a shorter time between flights? |
Michael Cassutt
Member Posts: 358
From: Studio City CA USA
Registered: Mar 2005
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posted 05-15-2013 10:14 AM
The entire crew of STS-83 (landed 8 Apr 1997) was back in space aboard STS-94 on July 1 of that year... beating Stafford's mark by a considerable amount. |
Headshot
Member Posts: 864
From: Vancouver, WA, USA
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 05-15-2013 10:54 AM
Yes, 84 days sure as heck beats 170 days. Do you know of any other astronauts or cosmonauts that beat Stafford's 170-day mark? |
Greggy_D
Member Posts: 977
From: Michigan
Registered: Jul 2006
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posted 05-15-2013 12:09 PM
Steve Nagel had 4 months and 6 days between STS-51G and STS-61A.Bob Crippen had 5 months and 22 days between STS-41C and STS-41G. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3208
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 05-15-2013 10:13 PM
Paul Lockhart ... 157 days between STS-111 landing (June 19) and STS-113 launch (November 23) in 2002. |
ilbasso
Member Posts: 1522
From: Greensboro, NC USA
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 05-16-2013 08:57 AM
Shortest time between launches from planetary surfaces: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, 124 hours 22 minutes between liftoff from Earth and liftoff from Moon. |
Headshot
Member Posts: 864
From: Vancouver, WA, USA
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 05-16-2013 11:55 AM
Good call.I had not even thought of that variation. |
dom
Member Posts: 855
From:
Registered: Aug 2001
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posted 05-16-2013 12:19 PM
In April 1980 cosmonaut Valeri Ryumin was launched to Salyut 6 only eight months after returning from the space station. The prime candidate for this six month mission had just broken his knee in a training accident, so Ryumin was considered the only natural replacement as he'd already spent six months there! |
dom
Member Posts: 855
From:
Registered: Aug 2001
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posted 05-16-2013 12:25 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Cassutt:
The entire crew of STS-83 (landed 8 Apr 1997) was back in space aboard STS-94 on July 1 of that year... beating Stafford's mark by a considerable amount.
Just read about these two mission(s). Wow, that was a lucky crew - two spaceflights for the price of one! |
Michael Cassutt
Member Posts: 358
From: Studio City CA USA
Registered: Mar 2005
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posted 05-16-2013 12:58 PM
quote:
Originally posted by dom:
...so Ryumin was considered the only natural replacement as he'd already spent six months there!
It's a bit more complicated than that. The unlucky prime crew engineer, Valentin Lebedev, had a backup -- former ASTP cosmonaut Boris Andreyev. Under crewing rules used by the Soviets in those days, Andreyev should have moved up. But Ryumin conceived the idea of a quick return to space, and he was able to convince Yeliseyev and other managers to buy the idea. (Ryumin seems to have been quite good at snagging missions he wanted, whether earned or not -- see STS-91.) Andreyev got shoved aside and never did get a flight. |
dom
Member Posts: 855
From:
Registered: Aug 2001
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posted 05-16-2013 01:48 PM
Thanks Michael, I bow to your superior research knowledge when it comes to the hidden history of cosmonaut training! Yes, Ryumin seems to have gotten his way a number of times. Didn't he even blag a flight for his wife too? |
Richard Witt
New Member Posts: 5
From: Oklahoma City, OK
Registered: May 2013
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posted 05-20-2013 09:51 AM
Ryumin expressed public disapproval a few times for Kondakova flying ("It's my opinion that a wife should stay at home, not at work and not in spaceflight. I think the majority of men will support me because the majority of us would prefer that everything in our homes is taken care of and everything is quiet"), but I don't know how much of that was honest opinion and how much was politics/staving off charges of nepotism.Meanwhile, although it wasn't an orbital flight, Joe Walker's two X-15 flights that exceeded the FAI's 100 km boundary were 34 days apart. |
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