RUSSIA: Having sent the first man, woman, tourist and dog into space, Russia was ready yesterday to hail the first person to marry in the cosmos, writes Daniel McLaughlin in Moscow.
But Col Yuri Malenchenko's plans for nuptials aboard the International Space Station have left his parents baffled and his bosses deeply bemused.
The 41-year-old had intended to marry Ms Yekaterina Dmitrieva, a US citizen, on terra firma, but delays in dispatching a replacement crew to the ISS forced his hand.
It was either postpone the wedding until he returned home or ignore the disapproval of his superiors and become the world's first space bridegroom.
He chose the latter and was due to take his vows late last night via a video and telephone link with his bride, who was 250 miles below him in a small room at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas.
Texan law allows a couple to marry even in the absence of one member, as long as a proxy is present.
In an explanatory letter to the Texan authorities, Col Malenchenko said he was unable to attend his wedding because he was " a cosmonaut, currently in the cosmos".
He had a ring and tuxedo delivered on a cargo rocket in June, and fellow ISS resident Edward Lu, a US astronaut, was set to play the Wedding March on a small keyboard as one of his duties as best man.
A Texan wedding planner, Ms Jo Ann Schwarz Woodward, said the couple had decided to marry after being badly shaken by the deaths of seven astronauts on the space shuttle Columbia, which exploded on re-entry to Earth's atmosphere in February.
But Col Malenchenko's plans have only angered officials at Russia's space agency. A spokesman, Mr Sergei Gorbunov, said the cosmonaut had agreed to delay his wedding before changing his mind in the last few days and insisting on the unorthodox ceremony.
"I think we will have the next crew sign a contract with a provision that they will not get married during their mission," said an exasperated Mr Gorbunov. "After all, this has been a strange series of events."
He said Col Malenchenko had ignored his obligation as a serving member of the armed forces to ask permission to marry a foreigner. "But he wants it, and he will have it. It's his problem," Mr Gorbunov said.
Mr Malenchenko's parents also seemed less than overjoyed at the prospect of the wedding.
"We don't understand this and don't think it should be like this," said his mother, Nina. "Anyway, we did not know this was even possible and only found out about it from newspapers and television."
The cosmonaut's father, Ivan, did nothing to dispel space officials' suspicions that the wedding was an elaborate publicity stunt.
"He told his mother 'Don't cry. There are so many cosmonauts now that no one would have noticed me if it weren't for this. And now everybody will know two Yuris.' One, Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space; and now Yuri Malenchenko, the first man to marry in space."