Space exploration signifies not only the peak of the human progress, but also a great uniting power. For some people, it is their job; for others, it is a dream, an attempt to understand rules of the universe and feel a part of the infinite world. “When Gagarin went to outer space, thousands of people in Yakutia wanted to be ‘registered as Russians.’ Chechens who had recently suffered deportation ran outdoors, shot from guns in the air and shouted: “Our people traveled to outer space!” There was general enthusiasm, which smoothed out inter-ethnic contradictions. Everybody was proud,” Oleg Matveychev, a professor of the Higher School of Economics, said.
On April 12 the world celebrates the 55th anniversary of the first manned space flight – a loop around the orbit of the Earth. Yesterday, cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko, Alexei Ovchinin, and Oleg Skripochka contacted the Earth from the International Space Station. “Yuri Gagarin carried out a super-heavy task, which was the task of all Soviet people. At that time, thousands of people worked on this task. When this dream came true, it was a great joy,” Yuri Malenchenko, said.
“During his flight Gagarin orbited our planet only once, but it was the first step into the unknown, to where no one had gone before. This was a completely new, completely different habitat. No one was one hundred percent sure all would end well. Today we work here, look after the station, carry out our research program. But full five months is quite a long time and you start to miss the life on Earth, family, relatives and friends,” Oleg Skripochka stated.
“My expedition began on December 15. We performed a spacewalk in February and successfully completed all the tasks, which were part of the Russian scientific program. That is more than 50 scientific experiments in medicine, technology, biotechnology, astrophysics. In addition, there are many dynamic operations. At the moment, six ships are docked at the International Space Station; all the docking stations are occupied. It seems that the ships come and go all the time. That is, a very intense and dynamic life,” Yuri Malenchenko noted.
Answering Vestnik Kavkaza’s question about feelings in outer space, he said: “A spacewalk is one of the tasks, which in addition to the complexity and tension is associated with emotionally pleasant experiences. It is very unusual to leave the ship, the station and get out into outer space, where your view is not limited by the size of a window, and you can look at an object that flies in the outer space. The International Space Station is a huge station. So when you go for a spacewalk and turn around to look at the station, you see an impressive sight. But the most striking is the Earth and the stars. Thanks to intensive training, there is no fear, and the all the attention is on the task.”
“The view of the Earth from space is no common sight. We travel around the world in an hour and a half. And during this time we can see how the climatic zones change - snow, half an hour later we can see hot summer, then the ocean, and then the mountains. Of course, the station passes over many regions of the world, including Russia, and therefore, we can see the houses, cities, where we were born, where we grew up. We can even see separate houses, even our own addresses. Of course, this is a special, warm feeling.
We held a wide range of experiments in medicine, biology, technology, and remote probing of the Earth. In the medical field, we study how a space flight affects a person, his physical condition, emotional state. In the field of technology, we study new material for building in the future new, improved, advanced space objects, perhaps even intergalactic spaceships. Our goal is to do the work, to get the results and send them back. And experts on the ground analyze them and find application for them,” Oleg Skripochka said.
