Two US astronauts who have been orbiting for five months said today they had no worries about parachuting to Earth in a Soyuz capsule, a type of space vehicle US astronauts have not used since the mid-1970s.
Astronauts Kenneth Bowersox and Donald Pettit will return with their Russian crew mate, Nikolai Budarin, in a Soyuz capsule on Saturday, landing in an open field in Kazakhstan, where the Russians launch and land their spacecraft.
"I'm actually sort of excited about it. I've been looking down quite a bit from up here in orbit, looking down at Kazakhstan. It's a beautiful country," Bowersox said from the International Space Station during an orbital link-up with reporters.
The three men were supposed to return to Earth in March aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, but the entire series of crew and supply launches had to be adjusted after the remaining US shuttle fleet was grounded following the Columbia disaster.
Columbia broke up while reentering the atmosphere on February 1st, killing all seven astronauts aboard. This will be the first crew since the accident to attempt a landing, which along with launch is the riskiest part of space flight.
Pettit, however, said neither the circumstances nor the change of spacecraft caused him particular concern.
"We've had a heap of training for both Soyuz and shuttle entries and either one is fine with us. I don't think there's any extraordinary angst about the particular entry we're planning to do here," Pettit said.
The ride down on a Soyuz is considerably rougher than on a shuttle, according to Russians who have done both. One Russian who has is Yuri Malenchenko, the station's new commander, who arrived on Sunday with American Edward Lu.
"It's a pretty big difference. Landing by shuttle is a pretty comfortable landing, like commercial airplane," he said.