query: crew family attendance at launches

I'm looking for information on what family members have attended
launches of their near-and-dear ones at Baykonur, especially when the
launchees are American or other foreigners. Spouses and kids, are usual;
other members -- parents, siblings, more distant rleatives -- less so, but
not unknown. Ditto for launches of Russians -- or other non-US crew --
aboard space shuttles. Does anybody have any records on such?

The subject is related to future policy and practices, and possibly a news
story.

Thanks!

Jim Oberg

On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 22:54:14 GMT, "Jim Oberg" wrote:

I'm looking for information on what family members have attended
launches of their near-and-dear ones at Baykonur, especially when the
launchees are American or other foreigners. Spouses and kids, are usual;
other members -- parents, siblings, more distant rleatives -- less so, but
not unknown. Ditto for launches of Russians -- or other non-US crew --
aboard space shuttles. Does anybody have any records on such?

Not sure how helpful this is, but I did a little Googling and came up with
these- Andre Kuipers' parents (and his family) watched the launch of
TMA-4 at Baikonur, along with Michael Fincke's father. Also, Mark
Shuttleworth had his parents and siblings flown in from South Africa to
watch his launch.

References to these were pretty easy to find, but others may require
the searching skills of Rusty or Pat

Dale

I'm looking for information on what family members have attended
launches of their near-and-dear ones at Baykonur, especially when the
launchees are American or other foreigners. Spouses and kids, are usual;
other members -- parents, siblings, more distant rleatives -- less so, but
not unknown.

Jim

I well recall that when Helen Sharman flew on Soyuz TM-12 her parents
and her younger brother and sister were all at Baikonour, and are
clearly seen, then interviewed, on the BBC coverage.

Hope this helps

Tony

Thanks, folks -- this puts some things in perspective,
will report about it soon.