Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 19:40:49 +0000
Subject: cyborgs in space


All,

Two brief outakes from NS recently which I found interesting, perhaps 
even significant...

"SPACE TOURIST Dennis Tito not only got the thrill of a lifetime on 
board the International Space Station. He also came back with some great 
stories to tell. NASA battled to keep Tito off the space station, 
complaining that he had not been trained sufficiently to prevent him 
from breaking something critical. In the end, NASA relented--but not 
before it had thoroughly annoyed the Russian commander of the space 
station. Matters came to a head when the space shuttle Endeavour visited 
before Tito arrived. It seems the shuttle's toilet went on the blink, 
and the departing Americans needed to use the toilet on the Russian part 
of the space station. Space toilets are high technology, so the Russian 
commander said no-the Americans had not been trained how to use the 
Russian toilet. He finally relented, but only after the Americans went 
through a proper training session. Tito recounted this story at a Los 
Angeles meeting of the Space Frontier Foundation, drawing, according to 
SpaceRef.com, "riotous laughter from the audience".

Cosmonauts aboard the Russian Space Station Mir regularly indulged in a 
drop of vodka and the occasional cigarette that they had smuggled on 
board. Of course, this could never happen on the International Space 
Station given the clean-living, anti-smoking stance of many Americans. 
Which is why we were surprised by a link from the NASA Watch website to 
a high resolution photograph of cosmonaut Vladimir Dezhurov taken on 
board the space station in September. At the bottom right of the picture 
is a plastic pouch in which two large cigars are clearly visible. 
Bizarrely, a top NASA official was later hauled out to refute any 
suggestion that the cigars would be smoked inside the space station. 
Instead he announced that the stogies were made of chocolate and that 
Dezhurov intended to eat them. 
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-3/hires/iss003e5953.jpg 
"

regards
steve