Package from Hawai'i rushed to Soyuz launch
By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer
There was a mad dash from Moscow to Kazakhstan over the past week to deliver a special package from Hawai'i to the Baikonur Cosmodrome space center in time for yesterday's Soyuz launch.
Associated Press
The items in the package weren't vital to the success of the mission, but they did hold special meaning to officials at the Bishop Museum. Inside one of the last things to be packed in the Russian space capsule were a pu'ili, which is a bamboo shaker used in hula; a model of the Wright Brothers glider; and a set of power launch paper jets.
Former UH astrophysicist Ed Lu, bottom, and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko board the Soyuz.
These items will be taken by an American and a Russian to the International Space Station and used in experiments over the next six months. The astronaut is Ed Lu, a former astrophysicist at the University of Hawai'i and wrestling coach at Punahou School.
Lu and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko were scheduled to fly to the space station last month aboard the shuttle Atlantis, but the American space flights were grounded following the Feb. 1 Columbia disaster.
Left up in the air was the fate of the Bishop Museum experiments, said museum planetarium manager Mike Shanahan. The experiments are the first in a series of educational projects supplied by the Museum Aerospace Education Alliance, which includes Bishop Museum.
"We thought all bets were off after the loss of the Columbia, but as it turns out several of the Bishop Museum's educational experiments were reconfigured and put on the Soyuz rocket," Shanahan said.
Associated Press
But getting the items to Moscow and then to the Baikonur Cosmo-drome in time for last night's launch turned out to be an even bigger adventure.
The Soyuz booster rocket, carrying former UH astrophysicist Edward Lu and Russian Yuri Malenchenko, blasts off for the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
"It sounds like our stuff was still in Moscow until last weekend, and I heard that they had to drive the material from Moscow 2,000 miles or so to Kazakhstan, and so I thought this is not going to happen, there's no way this stuff is going to make it on board in time," Shanahan said.
But at about 8 a.m. yesterday, Shanahan received a call that the goods were tucked away in the capsule. At 5:54 p.m. yesterday, Hawai'i time, the Soyuz rocket blasted off and was expected to link with the Space Station on Monday.
"I was amazed they actually found a way to accommodate our stuff," he said. "First of all, when they packed the capsule they go in a certain order and they had to make sure there was room for everything."
Shanahan said he does not know when the experiments will be conducted. He said he hopes to have a live webcast set up so schoolchildren can participate in the experiments.
The experiments also will be videotaped and sent to Bishop Museum along with the items once the crew returns to Earth.
The purpose of the experiments will be to see if the pu'ili and toy planes perform differently in space than they do on Earth, Shanahan said.
He said he has a pretty good idea what the answers are, but he didn't want to give anything away.
As to whether either Lu or Malenchenko will perform the hula with the pu'ili, Shanahan said he wasn't sure.
"They've been given instructional materials and even a CD showing how to use them," Shanahan said.
"But they're astronauts, and they're real overachievers anyway and will practice everything they're supposed to do."
