First, a dearth of rubles stalled its construction. Protons are now back in business. Which leaves the Russians tinkering with the Service Module software. Fortunately, Russian software programmers are some of cleverest geeks in the galaxy. Years of coping with very limited hardware made for some ingenious, elegant software solutions.
Necessity is the mother of lean code.
The Russians insist they will be ready to fly sometime between July 8 and 14. Lu was to be Williams' spacewalking partner. So in January, when Voss dove into Houston's Sonny Carter neutral buoyancy tank to replace Lu, it made sense that the man who hammered out the choreography take the lead. None of this bothers Jim Voss. Not his style.