Blue Collar Scientist

Physorg reports that the head of the Roskosmos, Anatoly Perminov, supports renumbering Soyuz TMA missions to the International Space Station so that the next one is not numbered 13, but 14.

In Russia, many people have superstitious beliefs — black cats, Mondays, the number 13. That’s why I think that it is a good idea to change the number of the next space ship

Not just in Russia, buddy. Here in the US, a lot of hotels avoid having a 13th floor. This becomes a problem for me in elevators when my room is above the 13th floor. Apparently I tend to integrate the number of buttons instead of reading the button labels, and I hit the one that “should” correspond to my floor. Some hotels that lack a 13th floor lack a button for the floor. When that is the case I’m frequently one off on which button I punch. Since I believe that hotel elevators in hotels I’m spending money to stay in ought to be built for my convenience, I find this irritating.