[FPSPACE] FDW In Space (VII)

[Koen Geukens]

Hello,

Well, this is probably the last posting about "FDW In Space" as our second
Belgian astronaut returned back to earth on sunday morning.

In the National Planetarium there was again about 300 people to follow the
event. Also during the day a lot of people turned up over there to get an
update on the landing. I know that the undocking of the Soyuz was also
followed live over the internet in the public observatory in Urania. As
said in an earlier mail, friday and saturday night we had "Star Watching
Night" here in Belgium. Due to the bad weather on friday (it was raining
very hard all the time) allmost nobody came to one of the observation
sites, but luckely the weather on saturday was better. Based on the first
counts, more than 10.000 people came looking through the telescopes and
were informed about actions against light pollution.

Back to FDW. Because of the star watching activities the first pictures
that I saw was on sunday noon during the tv-newsbulletins. You could
already read in a posting on the list that the landing was a little bit rough.

In the early morning lights our prince Filip landed in a helicopter near
the landing site of the Soyuz. He was the first Belgian to see FDW after
his arrival. Later, prince Filip said that he was very impressed by the
flight and by FDW especially. Also, the commander of the flight would have
said that at his next flight he wants FDW to be a member of its crew again.
It seemed that the Russians were impressed by how well FDW could speek
Russian, to name just one. FDW told the press that his crew and the
residents of the space station helped him very well in adapting to
weightlessnes. Moving (or not moving) in space was more difficult than he
expected.

Back on earth early adaptation to gravity went very well. 

No newspapers today (as it is 11 november - End of WW I). But I guess they
will show some pictures of FDW and the prince.

It will take some time before FDW is back in Belgium and there will
probably all kinds of events where we can see FDW.

At 01:00 10/11/02 -0500, wayneday wrote:
>[I hereby declare FDW superior to Lance Bass.]

Well, I did not know that FDW could sing that well  :-)


As said in the beginning of this message, this is probably the last posting
about the flight of FDW. Maybe I'll post something again somewhere in
december. Not earlier, as I am preparing for a trip to Australia to watch
the solar eclipse over there. But maybe some of the other Belgians on the
list will keep you up to date on FDW-activities in our kingdom.

I know that these messages were not filled with facts and figures. There
are enough other sites where you can read about the experiments and all
that. I just wanted to give you my personal impressions of the flight and
the way it was followed by the medea and the general public. And I hope you
did enjoy it.

Regards,

Koen.

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E-Mail: geukenskoen@pi.be
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VVS/WG Ruimtevaart
Koen Geukens
Van Reyneghomlaan 16
B-2270 Herenthout
BELGIUM
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