Anatoly Perminov: Superstitious Throwback or Just Sexist?

Russian space capsule misses landing by, AP

"Later, [Federal Space Agency chief Anatoly] Perminov was asked about the presence of two women on the Soyuz, and referred to a naval superstition that having women aboard a ship was bad luck. "You know in Russia, there are certain bad omens about this sort of thing, but thank God that everything worked out successfully," he said. "Of course in the future, we will work somehow to ensure that the number of women will not surpass" the number of men. Challenged by a reporter, Perminov responded: "This isn't discrimination. I'm just saying that when a majority (of the crew) is female, sometimes certain kinds of unsanctioned behaviour or something else occurs, that's what I'm talking about."

Editor's note: In the U.S. such a comment about would result in an adverse job action - at a minimum. This is more than bad translation: Perminov stepped in this three times. One of the women mentioned is a NASA civil servant. Will NASA respond? We'll see.

Rough landing, Free Space/Discovery News

"Whitson surely could have done without the crash landing of the Soyuz capsule which because of a technical glitch dove through the atmosphere much steeper than planned, subjecting the crew to 10 times the force of Earth’s gravity -- nearly triple the usual force. But what was really unnecessary were the off-color comments of yet another Russian official regarding women in space. Whitson, you may remember, was given a going-away gift by her Russian hosts of a whip."