posted April 08, 2008 02:48 AM               

Commander Sergei Volkov, Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko and spaceflight participant So-yeon Yi are scheduled to launch at 6:16 a.m. CDT Tuesday aboard the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Volkov, son of cosmonaut Alexander Volkov, is the first second-generation space explorer.

Yi is the first Korean citizen and the 50th female worldwide to launch toward space.

Yi will return to Earth after a short stay on the ISS with Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko. Their trip home on Soyuz TMA-11 will mark the first time that women will outnumber men on a spacecraft.

posted April 08, 2008 06:18 AM               

Soyuz TMA-12 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:16 a.m. CDT, on its way to the International Space Station with the Expedition 17 crew and the first South Korean spaceflight participant.

Among the VIP guests present for the launch were the world's first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, and the world's first person to spacewalk, Alexei Leonov.

posted April 09, 2008 03:36 PM               

On their "Human Spaceflight" site, NASA is showing four TMA-12 photographs in a row, and under the header "Expedition inflight photos".

Now obviously, when the inflight period has begun and the crew on these photos is still waving to the crowds while at the same time the Soyuz rocket is taking off, this can only mean the crew was never onboard, but missed the departure.

It is actually great fun setting up conspiracy theories...

------------------
Jürgen P Esders
Berlin, Germany

International Director (Europe), Space Unit
Vice President, Weltraum Philatelie e. V.