Expedition 17 launches on hope, 1960s Soviet technology

The crew of Expedition 17 lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan this morning headed for the International Space Station on board their Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft to start their 6 month stay in space. Expedition 17 is carrying two Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonauts and one Korean female astronaut as part of the Korean Astronaut Program. Among other things, she'll be bringing an experiment of 1,000 fruit flies to the ISS, so it will be easy to identify whose fault it is when flies start turning up all over the place on the station. The TMA-12 spacecraft will return the Korean astronaut and two Expedition 16 astronauts to Earth next week. I'm glad to see the Soyuz rocket and Soyuz spacecraft still chuggin along after 40 years of dedicated service. Take that, America and your fancy new Orion spacecraft!

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