The course of true love never did run smooth — and that goes for outer space as well as Shakespeare. Plans for the first wedding with a bridegroom in orbit are facing complications from the American as well as the Russian side. But the bride-to-be, Kat Dmitriev, told MSNBC.com Friday that her wedding to space station commander Yuri Malenchenko was still on for Aug. 10.
DMITRIEV SAID the complications and the media blitz over the first-ever space wedding wouldn’t spoil their love story.
“I’m feeling absolutely, No. 1, overwhelmed,” she said. “No. 2, I’m just ecstatic over everything. Yuri and I are very much in love, and this is exactly what this is all about. When I had asked for a partner for the rest of my life, I had a list of things that I asked God, and I got all those things and bonus items in Yuri.”
The wedding planner for the event, Jo Ann Schwartz Woodward of Houston-based Schwartz & Woodward, said the controversy “just adds a little twist” to plans for August’s long-distance ceremony.
“It’s a wonderful love story,” she told MSNBC.com.
The two met during Malenchenko’s space training in the United States several years ago, and the relationship grew even when the cosmonaut returned to Russia, then went into space. Dmitriev, a 26-year-old administrative assistant who emigrated from Russia during her childhood, and the 41-year-old Malenchenko applied for their marriage license in Texas’ Fort Bend County on Thursday, according to the Houston Chronicle. Schwartz Woodward said the invitations were going out Friday.
Texas law permits marriage by proxy, and so a Houston attorney and family friend, Harry Noe, is prepared to stand in for Malenchenko. But the family wants to have Malenchenko virtually present from the international space station, either through a telephone link or a video downlink.
That’s where the complications started: To hear Schwartz Woodward tell it, there was some reluctance on NASA’s part about using the satellite links in the ceremony.
“They want to assure people that this is not costing the taxpayers any money,” Schwartz Woodward said. “But they do regularly schedule video uplinks every week. What this would entail is just having a few more people witness it.”
In any case, she said, a telephone connection would be available. “He does have access to call her at any time,” she said.
In NASA’s view, it was Malenchenko who promised on his own that space station resources wouldn’t be used in the wedding. The cosmonaut brought up the subject with NASA, telling officials that “this marriage is a private matter between himself and his bride, but he would use no ISS resources in support of it,” said Rob Navias, a spokesman for NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“They have private family conferences or the use of the IP (Internet Protocol) phone to discuss whatever they want to discuss, which is available to any crew member on board the station, but no ISS resources will be used in the conduct of the ceremony,” Navias told MSNBC.com.
Navias insisted that NASA itself had not expressed concern about the wedding or the way it was being planned. And in a follow-up phone call, Navias signaled that NASA would be willing to support the bride and groom.
“If between now and the time that this ceremony takes place, they decide that they wish to use ISS resources, NASA would have no objection to that, since it is commonly used in support of crews on orbit,” Navias said.
RUSSIAN RELUCTANCE
The Russian Aviation and Space Agency voiced its own reservations, however, according to a Space.com report Friday. Russian space agency spokesman Sergei Gorbunov was quoted as saying that Malenchenko, a colonel in the Russian air force, had to obtain the permission of his military superiors to marry a foreign citizen.
“This would be a precedent that we would not want to set,” Space.com quoted Gorbunov as saying. “Yes, (Russia) sent the first human being, and the first space tourist, into space, but the first marriage in space is not what we would strive for.”
Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency quoted Gorbunov as saying Malenchenko was ready to postpone the August date, due to all the difficulties.
Want to learn more?
http://www.msnbc.com/news/940767.asp
DMITRIEV SAID the complications and the media blitz over the first-ever space wedding wouldn’t spoil their love story.
“I’m feeling absolutely, No. 1, overwhelmed,” she said. “No. 2, I’m just ecstatic over everything. Yuri and I are very much in love, and this is exactly what this is all about. When I had asked for a partner for the rest of my life, I had a list of things that I asked God, and I got all those things and bonus items in Yuri.”
The wedding planner for the event, Jo Ann Schwartz Woodward of Houston-based Schwartz & Woodward, said the controversy “just adds a little twist” to plans for August’s long-distance ceremony.
“It’s a wonderful love story,” she told MSNBC.com.
The two met during Malenchenko’s space training in the United States several years ago, and the relationship grew even when the cosmonaut returned to Russia, then went into space. Dmitriev, a 26-year-old administrative assistant who emigrated from Russia during her childhood, and the 41-year-old Malenchenko applied for their marriage license in Texas’ Fort Bend County on Thursday, according to the Houston Chronicle. Schwartz Woodward said the invitations were going out Friday.
Texas law permits marriage by proxy, and so a Houston attorney and family friend, Harry Noe, is prepared to stand in for Malenchenko. But the family wants to have Malenchenko virtually present from the international space station, either through a telephone link or a video downlink.
That’s where the complications started: To hear Schwartz Woodward tell it, there was some reluctance on NASA’s part about using the satellite links in the ceremony.
“They want to assure people that this is not costing the taxpayers any money,” Schwartz Woodward said. “But they do regularly schedule video uplinks every week. What this would entail is just having a few more people witness it.”
In any case, she said, a telephone connection would be available. “He does have access to call her at any time,” she said.
In NASA’s view, it was Malenchenko who promised on his own that space station resources wouldn’t be used in the wedding. The cosmonaut brought up the subject with NASA, telling officials that “this marriage is a private matter between himself and his bride, but he would use no ISS resources in support of it,” said Rob Navias, a spokesman for NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“They have private family conferences or the use of the IP (Internet Protocol) phone to discuss whatever they want to discuss, which is available to any crew member on board the station, but no ISS resources will be used in the conduct of the ceremony,” Navias told MSNBC.com.
Navias insisted that NASA itself had not expressed concern about the wedding or the way it was being planned. And in a follow-up phone call, Navias signaled that NASA would be willing to support the bride and groom.
“If between now and the time that this ceremony takes place, they decide that they wish to use ISS resources, NASA would have no objection to that, since it is commonly used in support of crews on orbit,” Navias said.
RUSSIAN RELUCTANCE
The Russian Aviation and Space Agency voiced its own reservations, however, according to a Space.com report Friday. Russian space agency spokesman Sergei Gorbunov was quoted as saying that Malenchenko, a colonel in the Russian air force, had to obtain the permission of his military superiors to marry a foreign citizen.
“This would be a precedent that we would not want to set,” Space.com quoted Gorbunov as saying. “Yes, (Russia) sent the first human being, and the first space tourist, into space, but the first marriage in space is not what we would strive for.”
Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency quoted Gorbunov as saying Malenchenko was ready to postpone the August date, due to all the difficulties.
Want to learn more?
http://www.msnbc.com/news/940767.asp