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The Olympic torch travels to numerous places during its journey to the cauldron at the opening ceremony. This year though Russia has decided to take the torch to a totally different place altogether – into outer space.
The Olympic torch has been to space twice before – in 1996 and 2000. However, as a show-piece for next year’s Winter Olympics, Russia has decided to send the torch on its first ever space-walk. The torch’s gas flame has been replaced for it to work in space and a tether has been added as well to ensure that it doesn’t float away.
Russia’s Mikhail Tyurin will be carrying the torch with him into space when he blasts off into space on Thursday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. He will then hand over the torch to his fellow cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky when they step out of the International Space Station on Saturday for their scheduled space-walk.
“Our goal here is to make it look spectacular,” Kotov told reporters before his own mission began. “We’d like to showcase our Olympic torch in space. We will try to do it in a beautiful manner. Millions of people will see it live on TV and they will see the station and see how we work.”
The torch will return to earth when Russia’s Fyodor Yurchikhin returns with two of his fellow space travellers American astronaut Karen Nyberg and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano on November 11.
