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Will crisis tie astronauts' tongues?
By Richard Stenger
HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- The new space station crew will include an English challenged cosmonaut and a novice backup astronaut, but the group expressed confidence Monday that neither language nor inexperience would hinder their four-month stint in orbit. Russian Nikolai Budarin, U.S. flight engineer Don Pettit and U.S. commander Ken Bowersox should arrive at the station in early November, becoming the sixth long-term crew to inhabit the modular outpost. The trio talked with U.S. reporters in Houston, Texas about their upcoming flight. Budarin, unlike other cosmonauts involved in joint U.S.-Russian space missions, replied to questions through a translator. He and his crewmates dismissed concerns that language differences could cause trouble should an emergency arise on the station. "It's certainly not a barrier to our communication," said Budarin, who trained extensively in both Russian and English in Moscow and Houston, home to NASA's Johnson Space Center. Bowersox agreed, saying he understands Budarin in Russian and Budarin understands him in English. "The most complicated communication happens when some[thing] unexpected happens. We have exercised that portion of our language communication. I have no concerns," he said. Just in case, a NASA ground control spokesperson said a Russian interpreter will be on hand when Budarin joins one of his U.S. crewmates on outside spacewalks. The crew members said they would brush up on their second language skills in space. "It will be easier for me because I will have two English teachers, Ken and Don," Budarin said. Bowersox said that the second best way to learn Russian is to live on the space station with a native Russian. "The best way is to marry a Russian woman, but my wife has forbidden that," he joked. Whichever language they speak, Bowersox and Pettit will look to Budarin for advice on how to live in space. The veteran cosmonaut, who lived for seven months aboard the now defunct Russian Mir space station, is the only one of the three who has flown a space shuttle to an orbiting outpost. "We are going to rely on him a great deal on how to deal with [long-term] weightlessness," Bowersox said. Replaced astronaut almost missed earlier flightPettit has never flown in space and only joined the Expedition Six crew in July, when NASA grounded primary flight engineer Donald Thomas. The space agency declined to elaborate, saying only that the switch resulted from a medical issue that "affects Thomas' long-duration space flight qualification." In 1997, Thomas broke his ankle one month before he was to fly on the space shuttle. A replacement astronaut trained for his position but Thomas mended in time to make the flight. Pettit said he was more than ready to step up, having received virtually the same training as Thomas before the crew change. "I have more apprehension here sitting in front of the news cameras than sitting on top of a rocket," he said. The three men are scheduled to depart in early November on the space shuttle Endeavour, which will also deliver a $390 million girder to the station. They will replace the current space station crew -- cosmonauts Valery Korzun, Sergei Treshchev and astronaut Peggy Whitson -- who have lived in space since early June.
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