The return home is not a smooth transition from weightlessness to 1-g for astronauts that return home via the Soyuz capsule.

FORBES: What's It Like Experiencing Gravity After Being In Space For 6 Months?

Thursday, a Soyuz capsule docked with the orbiting laboratory after less than six hours of flight time, setting a record.

ENGADGET

We believe it has power-generating capacity which, based on the two sets of panels, that probably makes it comparable to the old Mir space station as opposed to simply the Soyuz capsule.

NPR: China Launches Manned Spacecraft

After a two-day journey aboard the Soyuz capsule, the crew will dock with the space station, overlapping briefly with the current crew - station commander Mike Fossum of Nasa, Japan's Satoshi Furukawa and Russia's Sergei Volkov - who will then return to earth.

BBC: Russia resumes manned Soyuz flights after crash

They will head to Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard a Soyuz TMA-17 capsule on 1 June.

BBC: Atlantis set for 'final' return

So for five years after the shuttle's retirement in 2010, American astronauts will be dependent on Russia to fly them into orbit on their space capsule, Soyuz.

BBC: Obama names US space agency chief

Soyuz TM-29 capsule docked Mir at 8:36 a.m. (0536 GMT).

CNN: Space crew reaches Mir for possibly last mission

The real fun begins at 90, 000 rubles, when you don a spacesuit and experience a simulated launch, flight and landing in a Soyuz rocket, complete with Russian- language capsule controls.

BBC: The dated future of Russia��s Star City

China has now completed four successful flights of its Shenzhou capsule, based on Russia's Soyuz model.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | China space mission 'on track'