The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: June 17, 2007

Official News - page 10


REAL LIFE NEWS: WANNA OWN A SPACE CAPSULE?

by Hazed

One careful owner, only a few scorch marks, would suit budding spaceman or woman...

A Soviet space capsule is being auctioned this weekend, along with other items of space memorabilia, in conjunction with the Paris air show. The Soviet capsule still bears the scorch marks of a return trip to Earth, after a two-week trip in the cosmos. It's about 8.75 feet long by 5.2 feet wide, and weighs 2.4 tonnes, and is one of a batch of seven launched by Soyuz rocket between 1985 and 1991 to take experiments in materials science into orbit and then bring them back to Earth again.

Two other similar capsules have been auctioned in the past, one in France and one is the US. This time, the estimate is between $39,000 and $45,500. So if you fancy owning a piece of space history and you have that kind of money...

Stop press: the auction has now taken place, and the space capsule was sold for $96,000 to a private French buyer - that's considerably more than the reserve price!


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