RSS Feeds
Science
A Look Inside Russia's Star City, Where Cosmonauts Are Made
Posted by John Mahoney at 9:10 AM on August 21, 2008
Wired has a great feature on Richard Garriott, the father of MMORPG OG Ultima and the latest millionaire to get blasted up to the ISS as a paying tourist. More specifically, the gruelling 8 months of training Garriott must first endure at Zvyozdny Gorodok, (Star City), a.k.a. Yuri's house, a.k.a. where space flight was born. All tourists on the ISS must be capable of performing mission-critical duties in the case of an emergency, and Wired followed Garriott through the historic site every step of the way, grabbing fantastic photos of this incredibly historic facility in the process.
All photos by Benedict Redgrove:
Inside Star City you'll find Gagarin idols everywhere, full-size Soyuz mockups (top), massive Cold War era centrifuges and, often, no hot water. It is here where Space Adventures travellers like Garriott must learn to perform nearly every task that the mission's actual cosmonauts will perform, in case of emergencies (even though the most glamorous duty he'll probably end up doing is emptying the toilet).
And, eventually face this (emphasis my own):
All this is nothing compared with the TsF-18 centrifuge. Weighing 300 tons and measuring 59 feet long, it looks like a giant blue phallus. It spins at 170 miles per hour, and riders are instructed not to open their mouth while in motion because the pressure will break their jaw, according to Driga. "It is like nightmare," she adds. "Imagine being buried deep in sand and wanting to move but cannot."
Many more photos and a really nice read at: [Wired]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
xcharliemx
Posted 9:42 AM 21/8/08
It would be funny if he memorized all the lines from Armageddon from the russian astronaut and kept quoting him the whole time he's in the ISS.
xcharliemx
WD40
Posted 9:38 AM 21/8/08
this looks like a blast from the past, soooo 1950s
WD40
Step666
Posted 9:16 AM 21/8/08
Am I the only person who's looking at that first picture and seeing a sort of over-grown EasyBake oven?
Step666
Chromeo
Posted 10:20 AM 21/8/08
@Step666: Actually, when I saw the main picture, I thought of the Technodrome.
TMNT V confirmed!
Chromeo
Xavoc
Posted 10:01 AM 21/8/08
@Step666: I think the first astronaut died that they launched in one of those...
Xavoc
bbfreak
Posted 10:46 AM 21/8/08
So yeah, hopefully we aren't due for another Soyuz accident.
bbfreak
robpruitt
Posted 10:45 AM 21/8/08
That is some high tech 1960's shit right there. No wonder Russia feels so invincible right now.
robpruitt
bbfreak
Posted 10:43 AM 21/8/08
@WD40: Hey, don't knock it, if it ain't broke don't fix it. ^.^ Hopefully they get those emergency landings ironed out, loosing contact with your crew isn't a good thing.
bbfreak
Griffehpoo
Posted 10:37 AM 21/8/08
The engine needs more potatoes!
Griffehpoo
bbfreak
Posted 10:35 AM 21/8/08
@Xavoc: Cosmonaut you mean. ^.^
bbfreak
bbfreak
Posted 10:32 AM 21/8/08
@Step666: Looks like a Soyuz spacecraft to me.
bbfreak
bbfreak
Posted 11:02 AM 21/8/08
@robpruitt: Indeed, their conquest over the 1960's are nearly complete! MAHAHAHAHAH!
bbfreak
dna
Posted 11:55 AM 21/8/08
Factory FAIL
dna
drfaustus71
Posted 1:08 PM 21/8/08
Shame no one mentioned that this guy is the son of Owen Garriott, An American Skylab Astronaut. Dad went the old fashioned way!
As for you folks knocking the Soyuz, well, just remember, they've only had 2 fatal Soyuz accidents in how many hundreds of flights? A few non-fatal issues is nothing when you look at the crazy things over all record.
AND... they've been incrementally upgrading them over time, so it looks the same on the outside, but the guts are all pretty modern. (Alot like the shuttles, built in the 70's and 80's, but upgrade all the goodies as you go along)
drfaustus71
Con Seannery
Posted 2:49 PM 21/8/08
I used to have this stuff in my basement. Threw it out.
Con Seannery
Maxwells_Nylon_Hammer
Posted 6:36 PM 21/8/08
When did we get to Retromodo? That control panel is to die for.
Maxwells_Nylon_Hammer
strider_mt2k
Posted 9:46 PM 21/8/08
@Maxwells_Nylon_Hammer: Agreed.
Soviet Tech is the ginchiest!
strider_mt2k
dcmidnight
Posted 9:42 PM 21/8/08
@strider_mt2k:I was thinking the same thing. Just started getting it as well.
dcmidnight
strider_mt2k
Posted 9:37 PM 21/8/08
That was a good article.
I just started getting Wired.
It's like a review of everything you read on Gizmodo...two months ago.
-not a bad thing necessarily. Good bathroom reading.
strider_mt2k
alanweinkrantz
Posted 1:21 PM 21/8/08
I was there last summer and a couple of observations....
1. Nowhere were there any computers, printers....
2. We had a "tour" with a supposed Cosmonaut, who smoked
3. There were no "next generation" of anything
4. The gift shop was nothing like a NASA or Smithsonian gift shop. Just a few t-shirts and some Russian dolls.
I think there's gotta be another, more official site they dont tell you about.
alanweinkrantz