Soyuz put in place for mission to space station

A Soyuz spacecraft atop a towering rocket was placed into launch position Monday at Russia's manned-space facility in the freezing steppes of Kazakhstan ahead of a five-month mission for three astronauts to the International Space Station. The craft was rolled out of its hangar on a flatbed train at exactly 7 a.m. in strict accordance with tradition and crawled for two hours at a walking pace to the launch pad. More

(Source: Houston Chronicle - Dec 18)