  The Soyuz docked early this morning with ISS, carrying American astronaut urlLink Michael Foale , Russian cosmonaut urlLink Alexander Yurievich Kaleri , and ESA astronaut urlLink Pedro Duque of Spain. John didn't have any hardware aboard this one, so we didn't pay too much attention. But now it's exciting to see urlLink Ed Lu and urlLink Yuri Malenchenko at the successful tail end of what must have been the most challenging and nerve racking ISS stay ever. Space.com urlLink ran a story on the docking that pointed out all the firsts for the mission: Michael Foale will become the first Astronaut to stay aboard MIR and ISS, Yuri Malenchenko will be the first person ever to urlLink leave Earth single and return married . The article errantly says Soyuz is the only ship currently able to carry people to and from ISS. China's launch vehicle is based on Russian technology and includes a docking ring. Their orbital inclination last week was pretty close to the height needed to reach ISS.
Pointedly, China has never expressed any interest in ISS, but rather hopes to build a station of their own as their next step toward achieving urlLink a mission to Mars . I for one am cheering them on. As Ed and Yuri prepared to leave ISS, they had urlLink a lot of unglamorous housework to do . Ed recently downlinked some photos he'd taken, which caused a brief and apparently malign stir here in Houston.
He said: "You know you live on the ISS when casual snapshots you take around the house can cause 200 engineers to panic and demand a detailed photo survey of everything you own. (Upbeat uplink from Flight Control). " urlLink This is a fun new space site for my teacher friends. Now here are some farming subsidies I can support! 
