More On The Soyuz Landing Mishap

Rand Simberg at Transterrestrial Musings leads us to more information about the incident 11 days ago.  He points to the MSNBC report by Alan Boyle.

Three spacefliers are still recuperating from this month’s rough ride back down to Earth from the international space station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and the investigation into the glitches that caused the April 19 shake-up is just getting started. But a multiplayer blame game already has begun – with the potential targets ranging from shoddy Russian workmanship, to saboteurs of the space effort, to the entire female sex.

If you’re wondering, it’s the Russians who are blaming the entire female sex.

Initially, Russian space agency chief Anatoly Perminov told reporters that the crew’s bad luck was due to the fact that women were in the majority – and that “in the future, we will work somehow to ensure that the number of women will not surpass” the number of men.

Just thought you should know.

The cause of the mishap is unknown at the moment, or ‘they’re not telling. – and would they tell us anyway?  It is, after all, politicly sensitive and will echo through the decisions to retire the Space Shuttle.

Publications of this kind are designed to disrupt a Russian-U.S. agreement on NASA’s purchases of Progress and Soyuz spacecraft after shuttles stop flying” to the international space station in 2010, he said.

Perminov himself hinted darkly that the rumors were fueled by “people who are interested in destabilization of our relations with the American partners.”

Perhaps he’s talking about me.

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