You take the high road

• Autores: Greg Klerkx
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2927, 2013, págs. 38-40
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Kleckx talks about the dilemma for space travelers--looking for a quicker trips. On her second morning in space, Anousheh Ansari was filled with excitement. She slipped out of her sleeping bag and somersaulted effortlessly through the Soyuz spacecraft. Then it all went horribly wrong. Her head and back throbbed with pain owing to the effects of weightlessness. The telecoms entrepreneur, who had paid $20 million to become one of the first space tourists, couldn't wait to get off. Leaving wasn't an option, of course. Ansari had to tough out the rest of the 50-hour journey rolled up in a sleeping bag with her head pushed against cargo destined for the International Space Station (ISS). That was back in 2006 when a trip to the ISS took two days and involved 34 laps around Earth. Earlier this year, though, a pioneering crew made the same trip in just under 6 hours. And in May, a second crewed mission shaved a further 7 minutes off the journey time, setting a new ISS-rendezvous record.