Actually, neither Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko nor Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson uttered those words as their spacecraft plunged through the atmosphere toward a rougher-than-expected landing in Kazakhstan last weekend.

But details are beginning to trickle out suggesting they DID have several problems, though exactly what went wrong and how serious it was is still unclear. NASA Associate Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmaier held a teleconference with reporters Tuesday afternoon to share what he does know about the incident.

Malenchenko, Whitson and South Korean space tourist So-yeon Yi were returning to Earth from the International Space Station on Saturday when some sort of malfunction triggered a so-called “ballistic” re-entry scenario. The spacecraft re-entered at a much steeper angle than planned, bringing it down a couple hundred miles short of its target landing zone near the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The crew members inside were subjected to far more extreme G forces than normal during the drop through the atmosphere - approximately eight 8 G’s for up to two minutes. There were Russian media reports of 10.5 to 11 G’s at peak, but Gerstenmaier was unable to confirm that.

There is some evidence to suggest that one or more pyrotechnic bolts that hold the crew cabin to the instrumentation/propulsion section didn’t “blow” as designed at the appropriate point in the descent. Those two sections need to separate so that the crew cabin’s heat shield is properly oriented during the hottest, most fiery parts of atmospheric reentry. Crew members reported abnormal levels of buffeting and jostling during decent, and there are anecdotal reports by people who saw the spacecraft on the ground that it was more singed than usual. The hypothetical worst case scenario in this case would be that the unshielded parts of the Soyuz would be exposed to searing hot temperatures for too long and they could burn through. This obviously didn’t happen, and there is no evidence so far to suggest it was even close. But after a breached heat shield brought down the shuttle Columbia back in 2003, NASA is very aware of the potential for disaster.

Yuri Malenchenko smelled smoke in the cockpit near the end of the flight, shortly after the parachutes deployed. He switched off the display panel for a time, and the burning smell went away.

Russian mission control was out of contact with the spacecraft for a significant period of time, and communications were not reestablished until after the crew climbed out of the downed spacecraft and Malenchenko called in on a satellite phone. There is more anecdotal evidence suggesting the communications antenna burned off during the descent, though Gerstenmaier was keeping an open mind as to whether or not there could be other explanations for the loss of comm.

And making the whole situation even more worrisome: this is the second time in a row that some of these anomalies have happened. The ballistic reentry and the crew cabin separation problem both occurred last fall when the Expedition 15 cosmonauts returned to Earth. An investigation fingered a shorted out cable as the culprit in the ballistic reentry. Malenchenko and Whitson inspected that cable in their Soyuz prior to deorbiting, and it appeared fine.

ROSCOSMOS, the Russian space agency, is appointing a commission to investigate what when wrong with this latest landing, and how it relates it to the Expedition 15 malfunctions. Gerstenmaier says NASA has full confidence that the Russians grasp the seriousness of getting to the root cause of what’s going on.

But this is clearly another headache for the folks at NASA, who will be relying on the Soyuz to ferry crews to and from the International Space Station for years to come, especially after the space shuttle fleet is retired at the end of 2010.

The next astronaut slated to fly aboard a Soyuz is Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke, in the fall of this year. NASA hopes to hear the results of the Russian investigation in a few months, and decide by August or September if the problem has been diagnosed and fixed.

–Kate Tobin, Sr. Producer, CNN Science & Technology

A new space station crew blasted into space through clear blue skies today from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz spacecraft carried Expedition 17 crew members Sergei Volkov, who will be the new station Commander, and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko. They were joined by South Korean space tourist So-yeon Yi, who at age 29 is the youngest woman ever to fly in space. Volkov is the son of veteran cosmonaut Alexander Volkov.

Source: NASA TV

Unlike NASA, Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, provides live TV pictures of the crew in the cockpit during the ascent into space. So-yeon Yi could be seen with a broad smile on her face, repeatedly giving the “thumbs-up” sign to the camera.

Once in space, it takes the Soyuz a couple of days to “catch up” to the International Space Station, so docking will not happen until Thursday.

Meanwhile, Expedition 16 crew members Peggy Whitson and Yuri Malenchenko are preparing to wrap up their six-month tour of duty and will return to Earth with So-yeon Yi in the Soyuz on April 19. Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Garrett Reisman will remain in orbit and become part of the Expedition 17 crew. Commander Whitson was the first female station Commander and oversaw one of the busiest periods to date in space station assembly.

The Expedition 17 crew is expecting visitors in early June when astronauts aboard the space shuttle Discovery come calling to deliver and install another piece of the Japanese Kibo Module to the station. After that, things will quiet down for a while in terms of station assembly, while the shuttle program turns its attention to flying the final Hubble servicing mission, currently targeted for October.

–Kate Tobin, Senior Producer, CNN Science & Technology

Prospects for blasting off on a suborbital “vacation” to space got a bit brighter this week when XCOR Aerospace debuted designs for the “Lynx.”

Source: XCOR Aerospace

The two seat space plane is designed to carry a paying tourist just past the edge of space — where you would be able to see the stars against the blackness of space and the “blue marble” of the Earth below. About the size of a private airplane, the Lynx would fly to an altitude of about 200,000 feet. The “tourist” could expect to experience about 90 seconds of weightlessness, though he or she would remain strapped into the passenger seat the whole time.

XCOR plan to begin flights in 2010, and tickets will run about $100,000 dollars.

If all goes as planned, the Lynx will go head to head for passengers with Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, which is being designed and built by aviation guru and Ansari X Prize winner Burt Rutan. That space plane is designed to carry up to six people, and is supposed to start test flights this year. That ticket will set you back about $200,000, but during those precious few seconds of microgravity you would get to unstrap and float around in the back.

Entrepreneurs have been touting space tourism as the “next big thing” for some time now, estimating the market to be in the half-billion dollar range. And while a $100,000 or $200,000 thousand dollar ticket is hopelessly out of the ballpark for the masses, it could be workable for a sizable number of rich folks who view it as a “once-in-a-lifetime” trip — comparable to climbing Mt. Everest.

So far the Lynx is still on the drawing board. We’ll keep you posted on the progress.

–Kate Tobin, Senior Producer, CNN Science & Technology