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The Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 22 Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan on Thursday, March 18, 2010. NASA Astronaut Jeff Williams and Russian Cosmonaut Maxim Suraev are returning from six months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 21 and 22 crews. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

In what was likely a softer –albeit colder — Soyuz landing than usual, ISS Expedition 22 astronaut Jeff Williams and cosmonaut Max Suraev landed their Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft on the snowy steppes of Kazakhstan Thursday, wrapping up a five-and-a-half-month stay aboard the International Space Station. The entire process of undocking and re-entry of the Soyuz was captured by the newest and hottest space photographer, Soichi Noguchi, (@Astro_Soichi) who has been sending down amazing Twitpics from space. See his very unique images below.
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A Soyuz docked to the ISS. Credit: NASA

Price gouging or simple laws of supply and demand? The Soyuz will soon be the only ride in town to the International Space Station, and reportedly, Russia is considering raising the price per seat. NASA and Roskosmos have an agreement for six rides to the ISS in 2012 and 2013, at a rate of about $51 million dollars per US astronaut. "We have an agreement until 2012 that Russia will be responsible for this," Roskomos head Anatoly Perminov was quoted by the Interfax news agency. "But after that? Excuse me, but the prices should be absolutely different then!"
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The Apollo Soyuz Test Project was the last mission of the Apollo program. The Apollo missions had already resulted in 4 missions to the moon and due to budgetary concerns the program was being closed down. The only thing left was to do a collaboration with the Soviet Space program. The mission did not match the great technological feat of a moon landing but had symbolic implications. In many ways the mission is seen as the end of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1975 when the mission took place Cold War tensions were already starting to ease and both countries used the mission as a public relations opportunity and a way to improve relations.

The mission did just that by having the two space craft from different space programs dock with each other. This was an interesting feat in itself because it involved adapting to different space craft in a way that they could both dock successfully. The Apollo and Soyuz capsules were both launched on July 15, 1975 respectively from the Kennedy Space Center and the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The members of the Apollo ASTP craft were Thomas P. Stanford as the commander, Vance D. Brand as the command module pilot, and Donald K. Slayton as the docking module pilot. For the Soviet Soyuz crew the members were, Alexi Neonov as commander and Valeri Kubasov as flight engineer.

The two spacecraft met in space at 8 pm EDT on July 17, 1975. Afterward the two crews met and performed joint experiments, exchanged gifts, and signed certificates to commemorate the event. The two crews further collaborated after docking by having the Apollo craft form an artificial solar eclipse. This allowed the crew of the Soyuz craft to be able to take pictures of the Sun's corona.

The mission was declared an overall success and helped to successfully close a major chapter in the mission of space exploration. It would be the last time that space exploration would be used directly as measurement of a nation's military capacity and was the first of many collaboration between NASA and the Soviet space program. The technologies and practical experiments would later make major achievements like the International Space Station possible.

If you enjoyed this article there are other articles that you can read on Universe Today. There is a great article about the Space Race and another interesting article about the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

There are also some great resources online that talk about the mission in greater detail. There is a great article on the NASA history web site. There is another article on the centennial of flight web site.

You should also listen Astronomy Cast, a podcast series on space and astronomy. Episode 124 Space Capsules Part 1 is a great episode.

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An international crew of three astronauts and cosmonauts blasted off Sunday (Dec 20) at 4:52 PM EST in a Russian capsule from the bone chilling Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The crew aboard the Soyuz TMA-17 capsule comprises Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, NASA’s T.J. Creamer, and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
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Following today’s departure of the three man crew of Expedition 21 aboard the Soyuz TMA 15 capsule, staffing on the International Space Station (ISS) is now temporarily reduced to a skeleton crew of just 2 men for the first time since July 2006. The ISS had hosted a complete 6 person and truly international crew complement for the first time ever since its inception, starting in May of this year.
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One of three Soyuz docked to ISS. Credit: NASA

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The Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft launched today at 07:14 GMT (2:14 CDT) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On board were Soyuz Commander Max Suraev, NASA Flight Engineer Jeff Williams and spaceflight participant Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil . They will arrive at the International Space Station on Friday.

If you've ever wondered about some of the unusual rituals the Russians partake in before a launch, an article on Discovery Space outlined the following traditions witnessed over the years by reporters for The Associated Press, or reported in the Russian media:
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Russian security officers walk along the railroad tracks as the Soyuz rocket is rolled out to the launch pad Monday, Sept. 28, 2009 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz is scheduled to launch the crew of Expedition 21 and a spaceflight participant on Sept. 30, 2009. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Above, a Russian security officers walk along the railroad tracks as the Soyuz rocket is rolled out to the launch pad.
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Mark Shuttleworth a South Afrcan space tourist

The very first self-funded tourist in space was Dennis Tito. Mr. Tito was originally by profession an engineer who got graduated from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in astronautics and aeronautics and a Masters’ degrees in engineering science from Renssellaer Polytechnic. He even worked for NASA's advanced propulsion Lab. So as you can see if you could pick someone other than an actual astronaut to be the first tourist in space Dennis Tito was an ideal candidate. The trip was quite costly at somewhere between $12 to $20 million dollars. Mr. Tito was easily able to afford this as he made a fortune on Wall Street with his investment firm Wilshire Associates.

The first woman to become a tourist was Anouseh Ansari, an telecommunications entrepreneur. She is most famous for her family which funded the Ansari X prize. Mrs. Ansari is in an Iranian American who, with her husband, founded Telecom Technologies Inc. The company was later sold for $550 million. Like Mr. Tito she also has an extensive background and her family's commitment to affordable space travel had a major impact with X prize, $10 million dollar prize for the group that could successfully build a privately funded space craft. The competition went on to spur over $100 million worth of research by private companies. Thanks to this investment, the private sector has started to make serious investment in space technology spawning space tourism companies such Virgin Galactic.

The importance of these tourists is that they are active members of the scientific community who just happened to have the money to go to space. Still, this has a major impact in attracting investment into private space travel as businesses start to see the market develop for it. In many ways it resembles the business strategy of companies like Tesla Motors a company owned by Elon Musk, another entrepreneur interested in affordable space travel. First the new technology is offered as a high end product to spur interest and raise capital. The next stage is to progressively lower the price and make it available to the rest of the public as its popularity and available capital for improvements increases. This model may very well be the future source of funding and innovation for space travel.

If you enjoyed this article there are several others on Universe Today you will enjoy. There is an interesting article about the construction of the world's first spaceport. There is also an article about Hawaii wanting to attract companies promoting space tourism.

There are also great resources on the web. There is an interesting article on space tourism on the How Stuff Works website. The New York Times has a great article on Charles Simonyi another space tourist who is went on a second trip to space in March 2009.

You can also listen to episodes on Astronomy task to learn about related topic. Episode 84 Getting around the Solar System is very interesting.

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