  Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers joined NASA astronaut Edward Michael Fincke and Russian Commander Gennady Padalka in a soyuz capsule and urlLink embarked toward the International Space Station early this morning.
As Flight Engineer, Andre is the second urlLink Dutch astronaut in space. urlLink Foale and Kaleri will urlLink return home with Kuipers April 30. I'm sure their families are counting the minutes! Amid the exquisitely negotiated cargo, the crew urlLink bring along new space suits to replace the ones causing that scary EVA incident. urlLink Spaceref has a nice shot of Michael Fincke waving during ascent here. Quick, I need an engineer! How heavy was his hand to wave during the ascent? If you're interested or bored in the next eleven days (especially around Wednesday or April 29-30), urlLink go watch NASA Select . I think they call it NASA TV these days. Whatever. They'll be covering a lot of the activities live, and it should be cool to watch.
urlLink Spaceref has a schedule of shown activities here . In other space news, urlLink NASA cleared Spirit and Opportunity to go the distance , five months longer than designed. Could this be a clever caveat in the press release in case they don't make their new goals? I don't care, go girls, go! *yes, they're feminine. I said so. * 
