500 seconds

Dry sharp sound, smoke, flames, and above the flat Kazakh steppe quickly takes off a bright star. Minute, the other ... It is seen as the first stage fulfills the second, the fire dot in the sky disappears, leaving a white cloud, and now only a dry report from the speaker tells the audience how it is screwed into the stratosphere small "Union". 500 seconds and all the astronauts in orbit. Fantastic, unforgettable sight.

Baikonur Cosmodrome, the launch of spacecraft "Soyuz TMA-16», 30.09.2009, 13:14.

3 Photo © drugoi





02



03



But, in fact, a passenger! )))
__
21th space mission to the ISS flies and everything is going according to schedule. This morning, manned spacecraft "Soyuz TMA-16" was released into the proper orbit and began a two-day independent flight to the ISS. "Union" will deliver to the ISS Russians Maxim Suraeva and NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams. They will have to work more than six months in orbit. The third seat in the vehicle takes space tourist Guy Laliberte in Canada.
Artist-billionaires from Quebec, 50-year-old Guy Laliberté - founder and owner of the world-famous Cirque du Soleil (Cirque du Soleil). He will stay on the ISS 11 days and pay for the pleasure of about 35 million. Dollars.



He even blessed before the start ...
(It was a pair of photons via plasmastik



Source: