I heard some vague blurb on the radio last week that “Explorer 6” had splashed down with two American astronauts on-board, but no further explanation was given. Were these the two American astronauts stranded in the space station? And, weren’t they supposed to fly home on-board the cosmonaut’s shuttle? Was this, pehaps, some emergency rescue craft docked at the space station?
Anyone else hear about this? (I may be wrong about the craft’s name, but it was definitely “Something 6”.)
You may also have seen a blurb regarding the 30th anniversary of the launching of the real space station, Skylab, which regrettably had its orbit decay before the Shuttles were completed in time to save it.
Nitpick: The Russians don’t have a working shuttle. They were working on one, but it never flew manned, and it wasn’t nearly as safe as ours. I think that they’ve abandoned the idea. They’re still using Soyez capsules to get people up and down.
Of course, it’s a much upgraded “new-improved” Soyuz. Them things have been flying manned missions for 35 years now, with 2 fatal accidents in-flight (4 dead total), plus 2 boost-stage aborts, plus a nice handful of hair-raising reentries like this one.
What they have done now is send up a 2-person “caretaker crew”; ISS-Alpha is only half-built (if that much) and actual building (and full-time operation) can’t restart w/o a Shuttle.