Higher, faster: Russia to add some space to 2014 Olympic festivities

[laserguided]

[QUOTE]Russia is injecting outer space into the 2014 Olympics — both literally and figuratively.

The host nation for the next Winter Games will launch an Olympic torch on a spacewalk and embed meteorite fragments into a special set of gold medals.

Scheduled for Feb. 7 through 23, 2014, in Sochi, Russia, the 22nd Winter Olympics will be preceded by a traditional torch relay to begin on Oct. 7. A total of 14,000 people will carry the torch from Moscow to Sochi, including Valentina Tereshkova, who 50 years ago became the first woman in space.

On Nov. 7, a month into the torch relay with the flame still being run across Russia, an unlit Olympic torch will lift off with three new crew members for the International Space Station.

Flying on Soyuz TMA-11M with Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, NASA astronaut Richard Mastracchio and JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata, the Olympic torch will be handed off to Expedition 38 commander Oleg Kotov and flight engineer Sergey Ryazansky to be taken outside the orbiting laboratory during a spacewalk on Nov. 9. [Summer Olympics Cities Seen from Space (Photos)]

"The story of the Olympic torch is part of our mission," Kotov told reporters during a news briefing held earlier this month. "We are going to take ... the Olympic torch out with us on our first EVA (extravehicular activity) and we'll take a few pictures and video and downlink them to the ground. And maybe we will have some activity (inside) the station with the Olympic torch."

"Nobody has done this before," Dmitry Chernyshenko, the president of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee, said in a statement. "The spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts with the (Olympic torch) will be a historic moment in the history of the Olympic Torch Relay."

"Conducting a spacewalk with the torch is unprecedented in the history of the Olympic movement and the world of astronautics," added Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin. "Its in-orbit delivery and the spacewalk by cosmonauts will be a bright new page in space history."

The aluminum-and-red-colored torch — red being the color of Russian sports — will return to Earth two days later on Nov. 11, landing aboard the Soyuz TMA-09M capsule with cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, NASA's Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency (ESA).[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.nbcnews.com/science/higher-faster-russia-add-some-space-2014-olympic-festivities-6C10800708[/url]

[Tobylol]

Still think we should boycott it in response to their extremely shitty and violent views on LGBT people.

[laserguided]

[QUOTE=Tobylol;41658009]Still think we should boycott it in response to their extremely shitty and violent views on LGBT people.[/QUOTE]
Then don't spend $1000 on a ticket to Sochi? Nobody boycotted the 2008 olympics.

[Zambies!]

That's blatant Russophillia to just let that go.

[LVL FACTORY]

[QUOTE=Tobylol;41658009]Still think we should boycott it in response to their extremely shitty and violent views on LGBT people.[/QUOTE]

You can boycott it it leaves more space for the people to come

[Big D Duchovny]

[QUOTE=LVL FACTORY;41659545]You can boycott it it leaves more space for the people to come[/QUOTE]

Lol why would you even support Russia in such an asinine decision. Russia is a homophobic country and they shouldn't host the Olympic Games under any circumstances. That the committee even made that decision in the first place is dumb as shit.