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posted by janrinok on Wednesday September 07 2016, @05:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the next-capsule-arriving-at-platform-one dept.

Jeff Williams, Alexey Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka have returned to Earth from the International Space Station:

Less than a week after winding up a successful spacewalk, outgoing space station commander Jeff Williams, America's most experienced astronaut, joined two Russian cosmonauts for a fiery return to Earth Tuesday, closing out a 172-day mission with an on-target landing in Kazakhstan.

[...] The four-minute 41-second burn slowed the ship by 286 mph, just enough to drop the far side of the orbit deep into Earth's atmosphere. After a 25-minute free fall to just above the top of the discernible atmosphere, the three modules making up the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft separated. A few moments after that, the central crew cabin, the only module protected by a heat shield, slammed into the atmosphere at an altitude of 62 miles and a velocity of some 17,000 mph. Using atmospheric friction to slow down, the descent module's main parachute deployed at an altitude of a little less than seven miles and the spacecraft settled to the steppe of Kazakhstan.

[...] For Williams, the end of the mission marked a personal milestone. On Aug. 20, he surpassed the U.S. record for most cumulative time in space -- 520 days -- that was set earlier this year by astronaut Scott Kelly at the end of his nearly yearlong mission. With landing Tuesday, Williams' mark will stand at 534 days aloft over four missions, moving him up to 14th on the list of most experienced spacemen. The overall record is held by Gennady Padalka, who has logged 878 days in space over five missions.


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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:03PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:03PM (#398802)

    > one intelligent species

    The dolphins would like to remind you that both the ants and the bonobos are pretty smart.

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:14PM

    by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:14PM (#398806) Journal

    Oh, that's odd. I'd assumed the dolphins had already left the planet!

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:17PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:17PM (#398807)

      I entered the wrong address in the Vogon database. Probably distracted by some poetry.
      In somewhat related news, we can stop looking for planet X (or 9).

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:32PM (#398813)

    I get the dolphins and the bonobos (I would argue that any animal capable of recognising itself in the mirror is worth mentioning, and all apes do that, plus whales and dolphins), but why the ants?
    maybe I'm stupid, but I can't easily imagine ants "thinking" in a fashion that could lead to science and technology (arguably, it's hard to imagine that for marine mammals as well).

    • (Score: 2) by t-3 on Wednesday September 07 2016, @07:02PM

      by t-3 (4907) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @07:02PM (#398824)

      Ants don't need science or technology, or the damocles' sword of resource hungry brains that make them possible. They've evolved complex societies and adaptive behavior to the point that it's almost impossible to imagine a future where the human species outlasts them. Evolutionarily, they are almost certainly better suited to long term survival, and our only advantage is possibly being able to colonize other planets or make permanent outposts in space, but in that case, they'll probably hitch a ride and be there right along with us.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:36PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:36PM (#398816) Journal

    Meanwhile the octopodes are patiently biding time in the shadows and opening boxes [youtube.com].

  • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday September 07 2016, @09:36PM

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @09:36PM (#398874)

    Octopus and Parrots too.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by el_oscuro on Wednesday September 07 2016, @09:45PM

    by el_oscuro (1711) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @09:45PM (#398881)

    For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

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    • (Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday September 08 2016, @04:54AM

      by tftp (806) on Thursday September 08 2016, @04:54AM (#399032) Homepage

      But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

      I entirely missed the news about dolphins inventing and using high-tech healthcare that makes their lives longer and happier :-) Those are objective measures of success, as you cannot succeed if you are dead. Short lifespan (under 20 years) and lack of permanent, cross-generational records (difficult in water and without hands) unavoidably impede development of the society.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 08 2016, @07:18AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 08 2016, @07:18AM (#399076)

        Some 70 years, of which around 45 is wasted working to make other people rich and another 15 is wasted in schools preparing for the same. That leaves us with about 10 years to enjoy, half of which being when we are too old to remember what we enjoy.

        Compared to 20 years to enjoy for dolphins.

        I think the dolphins have a pretty good point.

        • (Score: 1) by tftp on Friday September 09 2016, @05:55AM

          by tftp (806) on Friday September 09 2016, @05:55AM (#399494) Homepage

          Some 70 years, of which around 45 is wasted working to make other people rich and another 15 is wasted in schools preparing for the same. That leaves us with about 10 years to enjoy, half of which being when we are too old to remember what we enjoy.

          Hardly any modern human willingly chooses to become a full-time hunter-gatherer instead of going to school, getting a job, buying a car and raising a family. I wonder why :-)