Stuffed toys in space!

The internet can take you into some weird and wonderful places.

There you are, idly browsing through your Twitter feed (there's not much else to do on a wet Tuesday evening at Dixon Towers) when there's a message from NASA.

Not, unfortunately, a personal invitation to ride a Saturn V to the moon – although that would be rather fun – but a general announcement that the launch of the next Soyuz capsule will be live online in about five minutes time.

Well, it's got to be better than watching another of our 37 pre-recorded episodes of Time Team. There's only so many postholes a chap can stand, even on this aforementioned wet Tuesday.

So let's crank up the broadband, shove another log on the wifi router and stand by for blast-off.

Oh dear. Oh deary deary deary dear. What a terrible shock.

Into space on Soyuz TMA-09M (Picture: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

In the good old days, astronauts had The Right Stuff. Those of us wrinkly enough to remember the original moon landings still cherish an idealised picture of square-jawed American heroes, blasting into the unknown on a flaming trail of glory.

But the live camera inside Soyuz TMA-09M tells a different story. Because dangling from the roof on elastic strings are not one, but two, stuffed cuddly toys.

One of them might be a lion. The other, according to that reliable source "a quick search on Google", was a present to commander Fyodor Yurchikhin when he was a boy, and is a dog. Or maybe a hippopotamus. Google isn't quite sure on that one.

The animals don't appear to enjoy the flight. At first stage separation they jiggle up and down like thrill-seekers at some cosmic funfair. At second stage they lurch drunkenly around the cabin, bashing the crew on the head. At third stage they disappear into a hole in the roof.

Also on board is a tank of guppy-like fishes, science for the advancement of. But we don't see them. Perhaps they're camera-shy.

Six hours later, the capsule docks with the International Space Station, where stuffed toys, crew and guppies disembark safely.

Meanwhile, though, here on earth, childhood illusions lie in tatters.

Lost in space - with a dodgy boiler

Technology has two very different faces.

A bright, shiny face and a grim, grumpy face. As events earlier this week will illustrate.

First, the bright and shiny bit: the International Space Station, or ISS to its chums.

Just look at its vital statistics.

 At nearly 51 metres long and 109 metres wide, and weighing 370 tonnes (that’s 407 tons in old money), it’s the largest and heaviest artificial satellite ever to orbit the earth. It travels at an average speed of 17,239mph, at a height of up to 286 miles above the ground, and completes 15.7 orbits per day.

It currently carries a crew of six people, who for all sorts of very good reasons aren’t allowed to indulge in any kind of interplanetary rumpy-pumpy, according to a recent  interview with NASA Commander Alan Poindexter.

(Now there’s a good square-jawed- New-Frontier-Buzz-Lightyear-style American surname if ever there was one. Just the right sort of star-spangled hero to lead humanity to infinity and beyond. No cosmic nooky on his watch, you can be sure of that.)

The ISS is big enough to be seen from Earth with the naked eye, and for the last few nights it’s been passing almost directly over Bath. You can find predictions for the next ISS passovers for Bath at heavens-above.com

There’s something just a little bit awe-inspiring, and humbling too, about standing outside on a clear summer’s evening as it tracks across the sky, taking just four or five minutes from rising in the west to disappearing into the east.

Catch it if you can – it’s quite a show. And remember as it goes by: it’s not flying, it’s falling with style.

So that’s the exciting side of modern technology. Now for the dark, grubby downside: our hot water system.

Imagine: you stroll in from an inspiring five minutes watching the ISS zoom past, to find Mrs D with her special doom-laden face on.

And you know you’re in for a spell of protracted misery when she utters those dread words:  “Hugh, I can’t get the boiler to work.”

Which sounds uncannily similar to “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” Except about six times worse.

Kids will go unshowered. Washing will go un-upped. Towels won’t dry on the towel rail. But that won’t matter because we won’t be having a bath any time soon.

Of course, there’s a hi-tech solution: engage diagnostic skills, repressurise the warp coils, calibrate the quantum flux generator and stand by for ignition. But no. The green light is flashing and the yellow light won’t come on, and let’s face it, you don’t have the slightest idea why not.

You can bet your booty they don’t have this sort of trouble on the ISS. But then, nor do they have the eventual cure. Which is to open up the innards and give everything a good wiggle. Turn it off, turn it on again, run the hot water and bingo.

Stand back and modestly accept praise from assembled family members. You have boldly gone where no man has gone before.

Until the whole damn lot goes wrong again the following morning. Time to introduce the chequebook to the boiler man.