Imagine what it must feel like to return from a long mission to space only to find that your home has descended into madness during your absence.
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Whatâs the difference between the Space Shuttle and the Soyuz?
One is a highly complex machine, a showcase of advanced engineering.
The other one is flying to space.
âŠalso, for the rest of usâŠ
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Even Arthur C Clarke commented on this. In his (now sadly obsolete) future, Russian spacecraft continued to use small dedicated non-networked computers.
John Clark, in Ignition! also comments favourably that once the Russians had RFNA/UDMH they sensibly stuck with it while the US wasted a lot of effort on trying to produce ever more exotic propellants which would have had only a small improvement in specific impulse.
But we actually need both philosophies. Because some of todayâs exotic experimental techniques will be tomorrowâs sound engineering practice. I can remember when research into carbon fibres and boron nitride had a lot of classified documents. Now my daughter has a carbon fibre cello case, but boron nitride is not exactly a mainsteam material.
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How about this sad bit of prescience from Clarkeâs 2000 novel The Light of Other Days:
The sun rose at last, and banished the stars: all but one, he saw, the brightest of all. It moved with a leisurely but unnatural speed across the southern sky. It was the ruin of the International Space Station: never completed, abandoned in 2010 after the crash of an ageing Space Shuttle. But still the Station drifted around the Earth, an unwelcome guest at a party long over.
The Columbia disaster took place less than three years after those words were published. I guess we should count ourselves lucky that we still have the ISS.
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Youâd want someone who could outrun Imperial starships. Not the local bulk cruisers mind you, Iâm talking about the big Corellian ships now.
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Soyuz doesnât land at the spaceport. It lands on the Steppes.
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Wow that first step looks awfully high in 1G
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From Wikipedia:
âThe Baikonur Cosmodrome has two on-site multi-purpose airports, serving both the personnel transportation needs and the logistics of space launchesâ
However, you are correct about the landing, because they went to Zhezqazghan, not Baikonur. It obviously has some spaceflight connections because a main street seems to be named Gagarin Street.
Theyâre gaga for Gagarin! 
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Now you have me imagining the sound one makes when falling down in a space suit while on the ground.
Some possibilities:
âOuch!â
âOuie!â
âDâoh!â
various assorted expletives
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Some possibilities:
âOuch!â
âOuie!â
âDâoh!â
various assorted expletives
More usually, I imagine, âĐŸĐč ДбаŃŃâ.
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