Soviet cosmonauts usually returned to Earth by landing on the ground, often in vast stretches of wilderness. They had to be prepared to survive until pickup, and even went armed to ensure their safety.

Current Russian cosmonauts return the same way. To prepare themselves for the rigors of landfall during winter, they train at a facility in Kazakhstan. Their training includes starting fires and building shelters during brutal weather. View several more pictures at the link.

Link | Photo: Yuri Garagain Cosmonaut Training Center

Their paper formed part of a loose trilogy of flatulence-related papers that the pair worked on, which kicked off with 1968′s “The Use of Expired Air to Measure Intestinal Gas Formation” and concluded with 1971′s “Reduction of Intestinal Gas-Forming Properties of Legumes by Traditional and Experimental Food Processing Methods.” Truly, if you needed to know something about farting in the late 1960s or early 1970s, you went to Calloway and Murphy. I would kill to be able to put something like that on a business card.

Link -via the Presurfer

“You can’t whistle because the air pressure in the suit is only 4.3 [pounds per square inch], and normal atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi, so there are not enough air molecules blowing by your lips to make a sound,” he said.[...]

Jeff Hoffman, a retired astronaut with three spacewalks (including a mission to repair the Hubble telescope) has traveled 21.5 million miles in space. He said the technicians who trained him on spacewalks had told him that he wouldn’t be able to whistle, but he says he tried anyway.

“I couldn’t get one note out,” he said.

Link -via First Things | Photo: NASA

Over the past several decades, every mission that NASA has ever flown has first been practiced right here on Earth. This gallery shows dozens of training exercises from the Apollo missions through the shuttle launches.

In space, no one wants any surprises. To avoid being caught off guard where no one can hear you scream, every step of every space mission is practiced on the ground (or underwater, or in the air). We take a look back at NASA’s decades of creative methods of astronaut training.

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This mini documentary shows the breathtaking views from space astronauts have captured with their video cameras. And you thought your vacation video was neat.

An intimate tour… in 1080p… of Earth’s most impressive landscapes… as captured by astronauts with their digital cameras. Dr. Justin Wilkinson from NASA’s astronaut team describes the special places that spacemen focus on whenever they get a moment.

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Link – Via UberReview

Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy Blog points out that today is the 44th anniversary of the Apollo I fire that killed three astronauts: Ed White, Roger Chaffee, and Gus Grissom. I was very young, but recall being shocked and devastated that three of our national heroes died doing what they do. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, and next week is the 8th anniversary of the Columbia disaster. Dr. Plait published a tribute to all those astronauts and others who have died in the pursuit of space exploration. Link

NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Cady Coleman along with Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency send a holiday message from the International Space Station (ISS). -via Metafilter

This excellent image captured by NASA shows astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson gazing out of a window on the International Space Station. It was taken last September. Dyson, a chemist, went into orbit on April 2, 2010 and remained on the station for 174 days.

Link via DVICE | Photo: NASA

Did you think drinking your own urine was bad? To truly test whether you have the right stuff, imagine ripping out your own fingernails, on purpose. A couple of astronauts have done this before going into orbit, because they figure it’s better than losing them inside chafing, unwieldy spacesuit gloves, according to Dava Newman, director of MIT’s technology and policy program and director of the university’s Man Vehicle Lab.

Astronauts with large hands are more prone to suffering from this complaint as their gloves are too tight. This cuts off circulation and causes fingernails to fall off. Engineers are currently working on a design for gloves with robotic joints to address the problem. I’ll put off space travel until there is a fix.

Link – Via Quiddity

NASA has been making posters of their missions available for years, but they were usually pretty straightforward. Then in 2008, someone got the idea to recreate a Matrix-style poster featuring the mission astronauts. Ever since then, the posters have been designed to mimic science fiction or action movie posters. Link to story. Link to poster gallery. -via Digg

In the late 1950s, the United States government contemplated training women as astronauts, and newly released medical test results show that they were just as cool and tough as the men who went to the moon.

“They were all extraordinary women and outstanding pilots and great candidates for what was proposed,” said Donald Kilgore, a doctor who evaluated both male and female space flight candidates at the Lovelace Clinic, a mid-century center of aeromedical research. “They came out better than the men in many categories.”

The times being what they were, the program was scrapped, and US women did not make it into space until 1983. Link

A rock named Blue Genesis was brought back from the moon by Apollo 16, the final moon mission, in 1972. Moon rocks remain rare and precious for that a single reason – because we never went back for more.

The astronauts brought it and 200 pounds of other rocks back to Earth as the bounty from Apollo 16. At the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston, scientists ascertained that Blue Genesis, as it was once called, weighed 12 pounds, and they cut it to pieces to send out for study. Geologists estimate that it could be 4.23 billion years old.

Since 1981, a sliver of that rock has resided like a wedge of old cheese — a light gray speckled filling inside a dark rind — at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by healthylivinggal83.

Who knew how scientific just drinking coffee is when it takes place in space? You learn something new every day.

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