Spaceflight picture of the week 13 April 2006

PICTURE OF THE WEEK

This week's picture is from a series of unique pictures from the Flight International spaceflight archive, which goes back to the very beginning of the space age.ABOUT: CHINA

Spaceflight photo of the week 11 April 2006

Tell us your thoughts and send us your own amusing caption by emailing Rob Coppinger, Flight International's space reporter. Answers and winning caption will be published next week. Please supply a physical location in your message.

LAST WEEK'S PICTURE

"Although initially promising, the concept of pedal-driven LEM was eventually dropped in favour of a more conventional N₂O₄/UDMH/N₂H₄ propulsion system"

Thanks to Bruno de Turckheim for supplying the caption and to all other readers who suggested an explanation. However, no-one correctly guessed what was portrayed in the shot.

The picture, from April 1980, shows commander of spaceship Soyuz-35 Leonid Popov on a bicycle ergometer during physiological tests at the Yuri Gagarin cosmonauts' training centre (also known as Star City), located just outside Moscow.

Source: Flight International

Spaceflight picture of the week 13 April 2006

"Although initially promising, the concept of pedal-driven LEM was eventually dropped in favour of a more conventional N2O4/UDMH/N2H4 propulsion system"

"Although initially promising, the concept of pedal-driven LEM was eventually dropped in favour of a more conventional N₂O₄/UDMH/N₂H₄ propulsion system"