Luckily for cosmonaut Elena Kondakova, her upcoming trip to Mir lasts just nine days. Last time she visited the Russian space station, she stayed six months - six too many, if you ask her cosmonaut husband.
He says women, the missis included, should stay put on Earth and take care of their families.She says go fly a kite.
So goes the battle of the space sexes in a version unusually outspoken by American space agency standards.
To her husband's public dismay, and not-so-private pride, Kondakova will be the first Russian woman to fly on a U.S. spaceship when the shuttle Atlantis blasts off Thursday.
The mission will ferry astronaut Michael Foale to replace Jerry Linenger, a Mir resident for four months.
"I certainly would prefer to take Mike Foale's place and spend more time aboard Mir, but I'm scared my husband would not allow me," Kondakova said, laughing during a NASA news conference that was less buttoned-down than most.
"The only reason he gave me the permission to fly, he considered this a small, relatively short flight. That's why he decided I may go."
Truth is, she decided to go.
When the 40-year-old Kondakova returned from Mir in 1995 after 169 days aloft, then a world space endurance record for women, the couple assumed she'd never go back. Then shuttle commander Charles Precourt invited her to join his mission, where her language ability and Mir experience would be assets. She quickly said "da."
Her husband, three-time space flier Valeri Ryumin, now director of Russia's end of the Mir-shuttle program, didn't approve but understood. He, too, had an unexpected opportunity to return to space, in 1980, "and I couldn't resist."
"I was forced to accept it because I realize that being in her shoes, I would have accepted such an offer as well," Ryumin, 57, said at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration news conference earlier this month.
He went on:
"It's my opinion that a wife should stay at home for the most part, not at work and not in spaceflight. That's my opinion. There's nothing new in that because I think the majority of men will support me, because the majority of us would prefer that everything in our home is taken care of and everything is quiet and OK."
NASA's image-obsessed public relations machine cringed.
It was the second time in just over a year that a high-level Russian space official had offered, live on NASA's satellite TV link to all its centers, a blunt assessment of women's place on Earth and in orbit.
"We know that women love to clean," Gen. Yuri Glazkov, deputy commander of the cosmonaut training center, said just before NASA astronaut Shannon Lucid took off to join an all-male crew aboard Mir last year.
Despite having sent the first woman into space - Valentina Tereshkova in 1963, 20 years before Sally Ride flew on the shuttle - the Russian space program remains a patriarchic affair. Russia has launched only five women (two of them paying foreigners), compared with 28 women by NASA. Kondakova will be the 29th.
"Valeri speaks honestly based on his background, I believe," said Frank Culbertson, NASA's shuttle-Mir program manager, trying to put a positive spin on his counterpart's remarks. "I think you'd find plenty of Americans who would speak similarly if they were put in the same position."
NASA's first female shuttle pilot, Eileen Collins, also a member of the Atlantis crew, politely disagreed with Ryumin.
"The important thing is that Elena loves the job that she does and I love the job that I do, and whether we like it or not, we're both role models for the women in our respective countries," Collins said.
As her husband listened and snapped pictures, Kondakova said Russian spaceflights last months, sometimes even a year, unlike U.S. shuttle missions that last no more than 2 1/2 weeks. That's hard on women with children, especially because baby-sitting is rare in Russia, she explained to reporters.
The couple's solution? When Kondakova began space training in 1989, she said, her macho cosmonaut husband became Mr. Mom to their toddler daughter, Eugenia, now 11.
When asked in an interview if she'd like to fly in space with her husband, Kondakova said she'd like nothing better - "I can rely on him 100 percent." But two-person crews no longer exist, and it would be unfair to assign a married couple to a three-person team.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Achievements of women in space
Elena Kondakova this week becomes the 29th woman - and the first Russian woman - to fly aboard an American spaceship. In the 36 years of human space flight, only six women have flown on Russian spacecraft: three Russians, one Briton, one American and one French woman. A brief look at each:
1. Valentina Tareshkova: First woman in space, 1963.
2. Svetlana Savitskaya: Second woman in space, 1982. First female spacewalker, 1984.
3. Helen Sharman: British chemist wins contest and becomes first woman to live on Mir station in 1991 as well as first Briton in space.
4. Elena Kondakova: First Russian woman to live on Mir, 1994. Sets female world record for space endurance with 169-day mission.
5. Shannon Lucid: Launched aboard shuttle, becomes first American woman to live on Mir in 1996, launched aboard shuttle. Her 188-day mission sets new female world endurance record and U.S. endurance record for man or woman.
6. Claudie Andre-Deshays: Spends two weeks on Mir, 1996, becoming first French woman in space.