Progress cargo carrier docks with Int`l Space Station.

MOSCOW, May 2 (Itar-Tass) - Modified cargo spacecraft Progress M-05M
has been docked to the International Space Station, Valery Lyndin, the
official spokesman for the Russian Ground Control Center told Itar-Tass.
"At 22:30, Commander Oleg Kotov manually docked Progress M-05M to the
Pirs module," he said.
The cargo carrier has delivered into orbit a payload of 2.5 tons. It
consists of foodstuffs, fuel, equipment, as well as gifts for the crew -
the Russians Oleg Kotov, Alexander Skvortsov, Mikhail Korniyenko, the
Americans Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Timothy J. Creamer, and the Japanese
Soichi Noguchi.
Biochemists have sent a bioreactor and container with a suspension to
the ISS for holding a fundamentally new experiment codenamed Cascade
aboard the station. It envisions that two members of Expedition 23 - an
astronaut/cosmonaut and an engineer - will take on the role of
biotechnologists growing new crops on an imaginary interplanetary station.
"The Cascade is an unusual experiment," Tatiana Krasheninnikova, the
supervisor of several biotechnological experiments at the ISS said.
"For the first time ever, the crewmembers will put the seedlings into
the bioreactor right in orbit," she said, adding that the seedling had
been placed into bioreactors on the Earth previously and the two-days-long
deliveries into space had typically produced side effects.
Now the cosmonauts Skvortsov and Korniyenko will be the first ones to
test a biotechnological laboratory of the future.
The experiment will be held at the end of May and Commander Kotov will
take its results back to the Earth, Krasheninnikova said.
Apart from fuel, water, equipment, oxygen, and standard food rations,
Progress M-05M has also brought to the station a total of 13 kilograms of
fresh fruit consigned by specialists of the Institute of Medical and
Biological Problems /IMBP/.
The latter consignment consists of apples, oranges, grapefruits, and
lemons. IMBP spokespeople note the different in preferences that usually
exists among members of Expeditions. While the Russians prefer apples, the
Americans and Europeans prefer citrus fruits.
The IMBP packed them into special containers that help to keep the
agricultural produce fresh for several months.
Also, Skvortsov and Korniyenko asked to deliver into orbit some 1.5 kg
of onions and 0.5 kg of garlic.
Packages from psychologists and families include chocolate
confections, caramels and dry fruit, which will hopefully add some
culinary diversity to orbital rations.
Russian psychologists have also given thought to building up the
orbital library - they have sent science fiction novels by the famous
Russian authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and semi-philosophical fiction
by the founder of Russian space science, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.