The occasional rotation briefly transforms the space into a kind of flashing, pulsating cement mixer.

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With a planned rotation of the six crew members aboard the space station scheduled to begin next month, a delay in using the Soyuz could prevent the ability to bring replacements, Suffredini said.

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"Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation, " Benjamin Fong Chao, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said while explaining the phenomenon in 2005.

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