Russia to send Olympic torch into space

[June 24, 2013]  SOCHI, Russia (AP) -- An unlit Olympic torch will be sent into space ahead of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

The Russian Federal Space Agency will take the torch to the Soyuz TMA-11M manned spaceship in early November as part of the four-month torch relay, which begins Oct. 7.

Once in space, Russian cosmonauts Sergei Ryazansky and Oleg Kotov will take the Olympic torch on a spacewalk.

Dmitry Chernyshenko, head of the Sochi organizing committee, says "nobody has done this before. The spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts with the Sochi 2014 Olympic torch will be an historic moment in the history of the Olympic torch relay."

[Associated Press]

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.