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Comment by ramidarigaz | Hacker News Reader

There are only three right now. The usual procedure is to have enough Soyuz capacity for everyone on the station, so when the station has 6 people, there are two Soyuz.

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I love that fact that there are "usual procedures" when it comes to humans going back and forth to our 20-year-old SPACE STATION!

Maybe we don't have the space program of our dreams. But we've certainly accomplished the goal of having "routine" operations in space over a long period of time. How much have humans learned in that time!

I love that fact that there are "usual procedures" when it comes to humans going back and forth to our 20-year-old SPACE STATION!

Next, we'll have real-life gritty action heroes who admit to "making it up as I go along?" (Actually, that was Neil Armstrong when we manually piloted the first lunar landing.)

Unfortunately(and it's truly unsexy science) not much compared to twenty years of unmanned space exploration.

Everyone loves the idea of humans in space, but we learn so much more from robots and computers it makes the manned programs such a waste...

Without heroes the public will turn against it and not give a damn about robots and computers. I think we need manned space programs to keep the momentum going. Otherwise everyone will be like "why are we in space when the homeless don't have homes". I know it's stupid logic but that the way the masses think quite often.

Most people I know were, and still are, pretty excited about Spirit and Opportunity. Those were exciting robots at the time. Especially the fact that they worked for so long! 14 YEARS. The design is validated, let's have an assembly line cranking them out and tweaking them.

No amount of unmanned exploration can help when the question is, "How soon can I vacation (or conduct business) in space?"

We learn a lot more about how to do manned space flight from actual manned spaceflight than from robotic missions though.

Nothing in space in usual or "safe". There is always a relatively large chance that you can end up in a fireball relative to say getting on an airplane or driving to work. I wouldn't ever take space for granted at this point.

Also I believe the seats are all custom shaped for each astronaut's body. I'm sure in dire circumstances they could use a capsule that wasn't designed for them, but it's very much a case of each astronaut having a very specific seat designated for the ride home, rather than "do we have enough seats".

The custom seats mean you cannot use someone else's. You wouldnt fit (if too big) and would obstruct things. I may be possible, but would never be part of any plan. There are also weight/balance issues to consider.

The seats can be removed and swapped. They can, and have, gone back on different vehicles than they went up on.

so you better not have that last gallon of ben and jerry's before you take off for your 6 month space station stint.

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