[Carol Costello, Cnn Anchor:] Countdown is now under way for the first manned space flight since the Shuttle Colombia disaster. An American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut will blast off on the Russian Soyuz rocket tonight. Their destination? The international space station. CNN Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty joins us live with more good morning, Jill.
[Jill Dougherty, Cnn Correspondent:] Good morning, Carol. Well, you know, after February 1st, when the shuttle disaster happened, NASA grounded all of the shuttles. So there was a big problem in how were they going to get to and from the international space station. And all of that burden fell on the shoulders of the Russian space program, with their two space ships. They have a Soyuz spacecraft, which is a manned spacecraft, and then they also have a cargo ship, a Progress cargo ship, which brings up water and food and other supplies. So, right now, as you said, out in Baikonur, Kazakhstan on that launching pad there is a gigantic Soyuz rocket. And inside of that, the Soyuz capsule that is going to be taking Expedition Number 7 to the international space station. That includes, as you said, one American, and he is Edward Lu, both very experienced, by the way, and Yuri Malenchenko, who's from Russia. There will be quite a few differences in this flight because, after all, they were supposed to be taking the shuttle. Now they have to take the Soyuz. So they really had to hit the books and over the past couple of months they've been studying up on the Soyuz. Malenchenko, of course, knows it well, but Edward Lu really had to do a lot of hitting the books. And there will be two men this time instead of three, and that's a big difference, because they want to keep supplies to a minimum and try to economize on those for the future flights. They also will not be doing any space walks. That's one big difference. Although they can, if there is an emergency. And then another difference, they will be eating Russian food. And we asked Edward Lu about that. He said no problem, that he really likes Russian soup. So they'll be up there for two for six months. And another thing that's kind of different about this is when it all fell on the shoulders of the Russians, the Russians said we don't have enough money to do this, to build enough space ships. But finally, with a little push from the top here in Russia, they did come up with that money and they will be building these space ships. It's important because at the last minute there was a Russian official who was saying let's mothball this. But luckily it's going to go ahead Carol.
[Costello:] Yes, I was just going to ask you how the shuttle disaster here slowed the progress on board the international space station.
[Dougherty:] Well, it did and, you know, we asked Edward Lu just emotionally what was, how this was affecting them. And he said in the beginning it really hit them hard. But they're professionals, he said, and we have a job to do. And actually they're very much looking forward to it. They want the ISS to continue. You know, it's only about 40 percent built. They still have to complete the building and they can't do it until they get a full crew up there.
[Costello:] Yes, very passionate about their work. Jill Dougherty, many thanks to you. We'll get back to you in the next hour. Colombia Disaster