WOW!!! Was that amazing?!!
Our group just came back from Baikonur, where they took part in the launch of a Soyuz space rocket with 3 astronauts onboard! Russia, Italy and the USA sent their astronauts to the International Space Station on the Russian-built rocket Soyuz-TMA 09M. Our group of tourists, accompanied by our representative spent 6 days in Baikonur, witnessing all the action from within the heart of it all!
They toured the entire city and took thousands of photos, barely leaving their hotel, as they found a monument or a statue pretty much on every corner. They visited all the museums in the city, where they saw real parts of prior space articles, including rockets, sattellites, moon rovers, etc. They sat in the cockpit of a real Buran - Soviet space shuttle.
Together with our manager Alexander and our helpful local colleagues, we managed to organize a presence at the press conference with the astronauts, where our team even got to ask a question and speak to Loca Parmitano - the ESA astronaut from Italy! That was simply unbelievable!
Of course, as an added bonus, our team saw the roll-out or the Soyuz rocket, and later came to see it standing just meters away at the launchpad. After the final readiness report, everyone witnessed the launch from an incredible 800 meters distance! That's simply unheard of in the tourism world!
Please read some of the group's reviews in our Impressions section.
You can also find a lot of talk, comments and pictures in our albums, and on our facebook page.
