Kazakhstan, Apr 18: Armed with his comic book and a lump of cheese, Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers expects his upcoming maiden space mission to be like a camping holiday with friends.
Kuipers, from the European Space Agency, will blast off with two others to the International Space Station (ISS) in the early hours of Monday from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

"We are good friends," a happy-looking Kuipers told reporters in Baikonur alongside his colleagues from behind a glass wall where the crew were in pre-launch quarantine.

"It's like going camping with two friends in a small tent."
Kuipers said he would be trying to take some mature Dutch cheese with him and had already packed a science fiction comic book. Traditionally, on their way to the capsule cosmonauts smuggle a small treat into their space suits to take with them.
American flight engineer Michael Fincke and Russian flight commander Gennady Padalka will spend around six months on the orbital platform, while Kuipers will return to earth after 11 days of conducting experiments.


The crew is scheduled to lift off at 0318 GMT Monday.

They will spend two days in the cramped Soyuz capsule before docking with the station, where they will be greeted by a two-man crew that has been stationed there since October.

Kuipers, looking more relaxed than his colleagues, stole the show at a news conference where Dutch reporters bombarded their country's second astronaut with questions, barely addressing the other two.

"I think it is not doing justice to the Russians and to the Americans -- yet they send up people every six months and it is the first Dutch flight since 1985," said Kuipers's girlfriend Helen Conijn. "For the Dutch it's a special thing."

Kuipers said he would also take a photograph of the seven astronauts who died in February 2003 when the U.S. shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry. Kuipers was a good friend of some of them.

Since the Columbia disaster Russia has launched all the manned and cargo ships to the station, but has not been able to continue building the unfinished station because only the shuttle can take up the big parts.

"The biggest goal is to keep the space station in good condition while the space shuttle is not around," said Padalka.
Bureau Report