posted 07-18-2005 11:30 AM               

TRAVEL DOCUMENTS -- The change in landing plans has created more than mere scheduling problems, noted Melissa Gard, NASA's manager for the current expedition operations. In response to a question from MSNBC.com, she described how a fellow astronaut will be at the landing site in Central Asia with passports and visas for the two Americans, who had not expected to need them when they blasted off last fall.

Kazakh immigration and customs officials have been sticky in the past about unexpected space visitors with uninspected baggage, but NASA has learned from experience and expects no bureaucratic problems — or any other kind — this time.

posted 07-20-2005 05:29 PM               

I 'grew up' in the VITO - Vehicle Integration Test Office. This office is the one which is the eyes, ears, fingers of the crew in their absence, and incorporates the program requirements into the engineering flow at KSC.

One of the myriad of jobs that the VITT (Vehicle Integration Test Team - which supports the launching) performs is the passport thing. For landing, the VITO chief goes to the primary landing site; the VITT lead (which I was) goes to the secondary site. Should a 'foreign' site be used for landing, a team deploys there. THESE are the folks who meet the crew and who would carry the crew passports.