A baby for 'space bride'
Posted: Monday, July 31, 2006 6:58 PM by Alan Boyle
A bouncing baby girl has been born to the Russian-American couple who took part in the world's first "space wedding," according to the wedding planner who helped arrange the ultra-long-distance ceremony nearly three years ago.
"And they said it won't last 6 months!" Jo Ann Schwartz Woodward wrote in an e-mail. When Schwartz Woodward set up the marriage between Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko (who was on the international space station at the time) and Kat Dmitriev (who lived in Texas, where marriage by proxy is legal), eyebrows were raised all the way from Houston to Moscow.
But the struggle against international red tape long ago gave way to the "happily ever after" part of the story, Schwartz Woodward told me.
"They just had a baby girl at the end of June," she said. "Kamilla, Mom and Dad are enjoying their family. Yuri is back and forth from Russia to Texas for training. He is hoping to go back into space sometime in the future."
Meanwhile, other couples are targeting their own space firsts: George Whitesides, executive director of the National Space Society, and his intended, Loretta Hidalgo, say they plan to spend the first honeymoon in space aboard Virgin Galactic's craft - while Cindy Cashman and Mitch Walling plan to be the first to exchange wedding vows aboard Rocketplane's suborbital spaceship.
They might want to check out the wedding dress designed for zero-G by Japan's Eri Matsui - and who knows? If this trend continues, it might be worth reviewing the past week's zero-G sex advice as well.
