The Russian astronomer, director of the Astronomical Observatory of Irkutsk State University, professor, senior researcher at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of the SB RAS, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Sergei Yazev commented on the difference between cosmonauts and other people who went into space. He shared his opinion on Facebook on his personal page.
Yazev writes: “In the last days, the question naturally pops up in the tapes: if in four months it is possible to prepare a person for space flight – why do we value cosmonauts so highly? Why are they given the order and the title of Heroes of Russia? Doesn’t all this mean that the profession of an astronaut has become an ordinary, private?
I think no. Let me explain.
Yulia Peresild, Klim Shipenko, as well as space tourists who flew on Soyuz, and now also on Dragon, are still not cosmonauts or astronauts. These are participants in space flight. What is the difference? The difference in the first approximation is the same as between the passenger of the plane and the pilot.
We get on the plane, sit down in our seat and study. than we want. We do not know how and why the plane flies, how to fly it. In case of an accident, we are shown a small part of what actually should be known – how to put on an oxygen mask, how to get to the emergency exit. This is all we know (more precisely, we don’t know – we don’t listen to flight attendants, as a rule). Although the chances of saving a life in a critical situation are slightly increased thanks to this knowledge. Slightly. We are not pilots – we are flight participants, passengers.
Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko are the same passengers. For four months they were slightly trained, checked the vestibular apparatus (it is clear that if everything were bad here, others would fly – to die from a headache and vomit for a whole week, there is no time to work). For some, the first week in zero gravity is so bad that they almost die (I reproduce the astronaut’s story).
Of course, they were taught a thing or two – how to act in a critical situation in order to increase their chances of saving their lives – if something happens. After all, an unprepared person will not be able to open the hatch, and the necessary sensors will not be connected (or disconnected), and the necessary button will not be pressed, and so on. During the manual docking, commander Anton Shkaplerov commanded Yulia, and she performed some simple but necessary actions, helped the cosmonaut. He could have done it anyway, but with her help it was easier for him. But she herself would not have been able to do the docking – they learn this for years!
But the fact that Julia helped Anton does not mean that Julia is an astronaut.
In order to just be enrolled in the cosmonaut corps, after the most severe selection, you need to go through two years of general space training. This is an insanely difficult course, you have to work seven days a week, from morning to evening, pass several dozen of the most difficult exams, and there is no right to get a top three – you will be expelled. Special parachute training, for example, is as follows: you jump and continuously report, and in free fall (until the parachute opens) you solve a mathematical problem and report the solution, and only after that you open the parachute. If you can’t cope, you are not an astronaut, because motivation, stress resistance, memory, calmness are required. When selected for a detachment, psychologists expel applicants by the hundreds. An astronaut must have such a nervous system. which almost never happens in life. This is two years, but you are only a candidate, and it is not a fact that you will be hired. Not everyone is hired. Some are taken. and assign the qualification “test cosmonaut”
And then, if you are a test cosmonaut and you are enrolled, you start to study materiel. The station is huge, it has thousands of systems. You need to know everything, you need to be able to work with it, you need to be able to configure and repair it. You need to know where everything is – thousands of objects – tools, spare parts, components for scientific equipment. It’s a couple more years. Plus constant physical training, every quarter a medical board – you can be expelled for health at any stage.
This can go on for years. However, you are not yet in the carriage. Because the queue is long. Because instead of that. in order to fly ourselves, from 2011 to 2020 we carried Americans, Europeans, Japanese, Canadians on our ships, fulfilling our obligations under the ISS project. Ours had nowhere to work – only two Russian cosmonauts worked on board. Therefore, it was possible to wait five to eight years for inclusion in the crew (first in the backup, then in the main one.
After being included in the crew, training is also not fast – the cosmonauts prepare for a specific program on board the station, get acquainted with the equipment with which they have to work, the program of experiments. This is another year or, sometimes, two.
Can this be compared to the training of tourists or “space flight participants”? Can these participants be called cosmonauts? Of course not – they are completely different things.
Is such a difficult preparation, such a tough selection justified? Cosmonaut Alexander Lazutkin spoke about his flight. How there was a fire on board, and how the crew reacted. How the station commander fell face-first into a giant drop of poisonous ethylene glycol that escaped from the pipeline. How the crew worked in gas masks, when it was not known whether it was possible to remove, whether it was possible to breathe polluted air. How the impact of the cargo ship led to the depressurization of the station compartment. How Soviet cosmonauts worked at the same Salyut-7 station, saving the almost lost project. What could tourists do there? Nothing. And with a high degree of probability, they would have died. Anything can happen in space, and there is no one to help.
In 2020, for the first time after many years, the American Dragon finally flew, and the Americans had the means to transport their astronauts on their own, without dependence on Russia. Finally (under Rogozin) the “Science” module came to the ISS, now the ISS has a place to live for three cosmonauts and what to do. The queue into space in Russia will go faster, ours will fly more. You will have to wait not for 8-10 years, but for five years. But no less, because a full cycle of very serious preparation requires about 4-5 years.
It is impossible to compare a real cosmonaut and a space flight participant who performs a very narrow function. You cannot compare a pilot (and at the same time a flight engineer) with a passenger on an airplane. A passenger, a tourist is just a cargo provided by the program. “
The International Space Station filmed two scenes of the feature film “Challenge” with Julia Peresild. According to the director, so far it has been possible to adhere to the schedule. “So everything is going according to plan,” summed up Klim Shipenko.
Recall that the famous actress, a native of Pskov Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko, together with cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, arrived at the International Space Station on October 5. The crew plans to stay in space for about 12 days.
The film “Challenge” tells the story of a girl doctor who must go to the ISS to rescue an astronaut. This motion picture is a joint ambitious project of the state corporation Roscosmos, Channel One and the Yellow, Black and White studio.
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