Twenty Years Later, Kazakhstan Waits (and Waits) for Second Cosmonaut’s Flight

Soyuz rocket

For more than 50 years, thousands of rockets have thundered from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, sending a series of historic firsts in space:  satellite (Sputnik), human (Yuri Gagarin), space station (Salyut 1), lunar probes and more  Hundreds of cosmonauts have lifted off from the cosmodrome and landed to hero’s welcomes on the Kazakh steppes since 1961.

But in all time, and in all those flights, how many ethnic Kazakhs have ventured out into humanity’s final frontier?

One. Un. Uno. Ein. ????.

And that’s is not sitting very well with the nation’s first cosmic voyager, Tokhtar Aubakirov:(…) Read the rest of Twenty Years Later, Kazakhstan Waits (and Waits) for Second Cosmonaut’s Flight (527 words)

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(C) Douglas for Parabolic Arc, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post

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URL: http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/01/07/twenty-years-kazakhstan-wait-wait-cosmonauts-flight/