May 2, 2003

• Space Station Science Picture of the Day: Homeward Bound

  
  

  ISS Expedition 6, the 3-man crew now on the International Space Station, will be returning to Earth tomorrow.

  
  

  These are some of the thoughts Science Officer Don Pettit shared in the article linked above:

  
  

  
  

  “The feeling of being home is directly proportional to how far you have traveled. When you go out to dinner, you feel home when you pull into the driveway. When you go for a drive to a state park some distance out of town, you feel home when you enter the outskirts of your city. When you drive across the United States, perhaps on one of those memorable family vacations, you get this warm feeling of being home when you cross over your state line. When you go on international travels, particularly when returning from places with radically different cultures, you feel home the first place your airplane lands on U.S. soil. You may still be 2,000 miles from home, but you have this wonderful sensation in your heart that speaks out to you.”

  
  

  “After having been on Space Station for nearly six months, we will be returning on the Soyuz spacecraft and be landing on the desert plains of Kazakhstan. When our capsule goes thump on those desert flats, we will be literally on the opposite side of the world, nearly 12,000 miles from home. Yet once normal breathing resumes, we will have this warm sensation inside that we are home. I can picture sometime in the future, a crew will be returning from Mars and after inserting themselves into low Earth orbit, perhaps from an aero-braking maneuver, they will look down from their orbital vantage point at this blue jewel circling below and say, ‘We are home.’”

  
  

  

  • 3:27 pm
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