The Star City is Earning
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARCIN JAMKOWSKI
This place was the birthplace of Russia’s most confidential plans for its conquest of the universe. This is the place where all Russian cosmonauts, including Gagarin, trained before their flight to the space. Now space training is open to everybody, well, everybody who is rich enough. Very rich indeed.
50 kilometres northbound of Moscow. In the heart of thick pine forest stands a housing project. Access to prefabricated blocks of flats is restricted by a concrete wall. We drive towards a corroded gate.
“What?” – asks a soldier on guard. He is wearing a heat and a jacket from two different uniforms, tracksuit trousers with white side stripes and civilian shoes.
“They are waiting for us in the centre,” responds the driver. The soldier lets us in without any further questions.
“In the past, you had to be a genuine artist to get a glimpse of the Star City. The city itself used to be an object of art,” says Ivan Sivak who has been working there for over twenty years. Today, he is our guide.
When he embarked on his first position, the Star City was one of the most confidential and most firmly guarded establishments. “Star City was founded by a special order adopted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Soviet Union in the early 1960s” – reads a book “Cosmonavtica Sovietskovo Soyuza” [Soviet Cosmonautics]. The publication says very little about scientific research conducted at the site or life of the Star City. Offering a handful of hard facts and figures, the books is overwhelmed by propaganda.
What we know for sure is that national security soldiers were delegated to build the centre. Cosmonauts were recruited among the most talented fighter pilots. From two hundred candidates only twenty were selected. Future conquerors of the space and their families were relocated to a town of Chkalovska near Gviezdne [Space City]. Today, the site is the home to a military airport.
The centre was officially opened on April 12, 1960. A year later future cosmonauts took their very first exam on the pioneer flight simulator. Results were announced in the evening of 18 January on the second day of gruelling tests. Winners included Herman Titov and Juriy Gagarin. But the pioneer Russian spacecraft was a one-man vehicle. Selection was left to a special cosmodrome commission. “Gagarin will fly into space” – the commission announced its decision on 8 April 1961 after three-month long considerations.
Gagarin was launched in the morning four days later. He returned to the Earth after 108 minutes of the flight.
Chinese Do Not Fly In Space
“Gviezdne was supposed to live like any other normal city. And so, schools were opened, even a music and a ballet school, and 14 shops were launched their operations,” recalls Sivak. Investment funds dried out in the mid-1980s. The final investment was a local laboratory. “It’s true that we have not built anything new ever since. But it’s just because we don’t need new additions to the town,” argues Sivak.
Star City is a miniscule element of the post-Soviet space complex. It is the home to a scientific and training centre. While our visit lasts, there are sixteen Russians, fourteen Americans, two Frenchmen and two Slovaks training there. “Chinese also come here, but they don’t fly to the space. They complete the ground training and eagerly observe what is happening around them. We do realise that they apply our solutions in their own space systems,” concludes Ivan Sivak. Spaceships are launched into space from Baikonur – a cosmodrome located in today’s Kazakhstan.
“But it was the Star City that was the apple of the eyes of Kremlin’s rulers,” admits Sivak. Street are neat and swept clean early in the morning. Crisp and meticulously trimmed lawns are duly watered. But the place seems to be empty. Faded photographs of cosmonauts are stack on building walls. On one of the first photos we see Klimuk and only Polish cosmonaut Mirosław Hermaszewski in sepia receive flowers on their landing.
- And why do you fly into space so rarely nowadays? – I ask.
- You know, the only problem we have with our space industry is shortage of money – responds Sivak.
One flight into space costs some 20-50 million dollars. Unemployed spaceship experts – this vision terrifies the West so immensely that the European Union and the US politicians preferred to find employment for them instead of waiting for getting them head-hunted by North Korea, Libya or Iraq. It’s true that people employed at the Star City are prohibited from leaving Russia, but according to the report quoted by “Science” magazine (issue 2154) “there is a risk that selected experts have “leaked out” to terrorist countries”. The project for construction of a new orbital station is currently one of the key vehicles for funding the space sector of the former USSR by Western countries. Known under the working name of Alpha, the orbital station is named after the first letter of the Greek alphabet. Russians find it unacceptable alike any other names that suggest that this would be the pioneer orbital station. “Russians argue that their stations were placed on the orbit in 1971 (Salut 1),” says Bill Bates of NASA. The initial module of the new station (called Zaria – Aurora) was launched into space in the morning of 20 November. A rocket called Proton carried it to the altitude of 160 km above the Earth. Zaria reached its permanent orbit at 500 km using its own engines. First cosmonauts will inhabit the station in January 2000. That is also when the defective and ailing veteran Mir will leave its orbit to set off for its suicidal mission towards the Earth. Will the deadline for completion of the new station set for 2004 be met?
Alpha is a project implemented by thirteen countries – the US, Canada, Japan and ten member states of the European Space Agency. About 30 percent of premises of the new station will be constructed by RKR Energia, a Russian rocket manufacturer. Reuters and AP agencies communicate that delays in construction of Russian-made elements will postpone the launching of the station. Despite time lags, the US NASA space agency filed a motion to the Congress and the White House for approval of procurement of additional goods and services valued at 600 million dollars from the Russian Space Agency. Americans are convinced that this investment is essential to bridge gaps in the local space industry budget and provide funds for payroll.
A Businessman’s Treat
Russians found an alternative source of income. “Ever since the fall down of the Soviet Union, we began to silently open up the city to the world,” recalls Sivak. Changes were put in place and nowadays everyone who is able to pay a certain amount of money may take part in the space training. Depending on the budget, trainees may enrol for a part or a complete series of training events – the same training is completed by cosmonauts preparing themselves for the flight. This type of entertainment is popular among eccentric Western (and more and more among Russian) businessmen, journalists, travellers and sportsmen (not to mention the famous rally driver Mikka Hakkinen).
The venture is an extremely expensive one. Russian charge 1200 dollars per minute for a centrifuge simulating gravitation growth at take off and touch down. And trainees have to rotate for minimum quarter of an hour. A diving flight aboard a customised plane Ilyushin 72-MDK which reproduces the effect of weightlessness stands at 16,500 dollars. “Even with such high prices in place, we have already had some 150-200 customers,” admits Sivak. And last but not least several people have spent over a dozen million dollars to fly to the orbit with a team of genuine cosmonauts. “Those tourists are not shown to everything we have at the Star City. We behave like a female showing off her décolleté. We want to lure the rich who seek for space adventures without revealing any secrets,” jokes Sivak.
A Flagship in Collision
Dull plywood door lead to a room housing a mock-up orbital station. The room has no key but is guarded by a code lock. A faded piece of paper with “No photographs allowed” is pinned to the plywood.
“Don’t worry. Take photographs if you want. As long as you pay,” says the guard. Nine long metal cylinders with a diameter slightly larger than height of an average adult lay in the middle of the room. They are all painted in white and some antennas, solar circuits, flaps and engines are sticking out from their surface. This is one of two Mir’s orbital stations. The second one has been orbiting the Earth since 1986. If any problems occur on a station located 400 km above us, they are simulated on the ground copy. Scientists seek for the simplest ways of eliminating problems and communicate ready solutions generated on the simulator to orbiting cosmonauts. Mir’s life cycle was scheduled for five years only. Still, as time went by, decisions on its inevitable future were postponed several times. Once the station almost exterminated itself. Among numerous failures and incidents the most serious ones included loss of stability and collision of Mir’s Spektr module with moored Progress truck-commercial spaceship supplying it with goods from the Earth.
“Mooring is an extremely difficult operation. For instance, when Soyuz spaceship with a new crew aboard moors Mir, they have to connect 462 elements of the host and guest crafts altogether,” said Giennadiy Manakov, a cosmonaut who visited Mir twice and spent there 309 days altogether. “The cause of the collision was not defective equipment or the aged station itself but a human error of a ground-based worker,” explained Manakov. He is convinced that Progress was overloaded on the Earth. But overload was not the worst thing. The commander of Mir was not informed about it. If the truck was too heavy, it became uncontrollable and inertly struck the station bursting a piece of its coating. “It’s a miracle that there were no casualties,” sums up Manakov.
According to Russian plans, the last crew is to abandon Mir in June next year. As it is not economically viable to transport the spaceship to the Earth and if left on the orbit, Mir would become nothing but a roadblock, it will be drowned somewhere in the Pacific. The decision is not final as Juriy Baturin, a former cosmonaut (who spent two weeks on Mir orbital station) and the former advisor to president Boris Jeltzin has recently appealed for extension of its life cycle by two years.
Narrow, Confined but Solid Structure
The station itself appears to be as solid as a rock. Long grey corridors are lit by fluorescent light, and walls are lined with mysterious switches. Nothing is wasted aboard the station. For instance, water is recycled from excrements. “If you wanted to fly to Mars, you would need to master such techniques. You would need 50 tonnes of water per person to survive a thousand days (the journey would last approximately three years). That is why Americans do not take longer space flights than 14 days,” says Sivak. “They haven’t learnt yet to economise on water”.
I take my shoes off and take a walk to other Mir modules thinking about just one thing – how confined its space is. I could freely stretch up (I am 1,88 m tall) only in a room where cosmonauts have their meals.
- How can you live in such confined space?”, I ask Manakov.
- Everyday is a day full of work so you don’t have time to think about confined space. First of all, we conduct scientific experiments, then have physical work out which is very important as muscles go limp in a weightless environment and bone density is decreasing (times of the day are rather loose – Mir orbits the Earth so fast that crew members watch sun rise every 45 minutes), and then there is time for reading, “ says Manakov.
-Do you have a rich book collection aboard Mir?
- Unfortunately not. But I managed to find some good titles there. During my second stay I read the Bible and reached out for Ciołkowski’s studies. But science fiction was my best reading in space - says Manakov.
- Do you believe in UFO?
- I have never seen it so I don’t believe in it.
Manakov is the first person I talked to in the Star City who is not worried about the future of the Russian space science. “Russia survived worse times,” he comments.
A Museum of the Most Sophisticated Technology
A strange case is hanging on a wall in Mir’s dining room. This is the oxygen generator. It makes no sense to carry bottled oxygen to space. It is far too heavy plus transportation of condensed gas would be too dangerous. That is why, when air breathed in by cosmonauts has low oxygen contents, the mysterious cylinder begins to warm up. Inside the metal object there is a mixture of substances rich in oxygen atoms and seven rare metals which accelerate generation of the life-giving element. What are they? No one wants to give away the secret.
“In late February last year one of the cosmonauts was careless and the oxygen canister began to burn. A minute later fire burst out open aboard Mir,” says Sivak. “Interiors were filled by biting smoke and cosmonauts had to resort to gas masks. They managed to put out the fire at last but we began to consider evacuation of the ship”.
But what really frightened me were rows of valve computers standing right behind Mir.
- What is it? – I asked a female operating one of the machines.
- An interface of a computer. A device which inputs and outputs different data. But it is out of order today – she said while replacing integrated circuits.
The interface occupies a surface of several three-door wardrobes. Western computers of comparable class are usually the size of a cigarette case… In the meantime, our guide is raving about assets of Mir and the competitive advantage of Russian space technology. Because various news agencies release news about new technical problems of the station every now and then, I am not in the mood to listen to him. Unnoticed by guards, I plunge between rows of computers with dangling lights – the scene resembles “Space 1999” movie. And then I am really taken aback! I see a paper card reader aside one of the machines! In most cases, this type of data recording based on long punched paper tapes was withdrawn some … 20 years ago! A thought crosses my mind that perhaps the device is not working and someone simply forgot to scrap the junk. But I am very wrong – the first roll on my side features a hand-written date – 18.10.1995. In the back stand huge cabinets housing disc memories. They are in full motion. Rows of flashing green figures flicker on the screen. I remember the time when I visited the computer room at the Central Statistical Office of Poland. I was then told that they are replacing their equipment. It was some 15 years ago…
We Are the Champions
And what type of computers is fitted aboard the real-life Mir? “There are two giant machines, but I don’t know their symbols because I was not interested in it. They are similar to devices we have on the ground,” says cosmonaut Giennadiy Manakov. “Well, and once we took a laptop with us. That’s all.”
“Why are those machines supporting Mir and its ground simulator so old?” – I ask a system operator. “Ever since the Kremlin made friends with the West it lost its interest in space,” responds engineer Valentin Dimitriev. “They are not ever eager to invest a rubel in us. I don’t even remember this computer ever being upgraded.”
Dimitriev has been working in the Star City for over 20 years. He is a graduate of the electronics department of Moscow’s Zukov Technical Institute. “My wife also found employment at Star City as a centrifuge operator”. He earns a thousand Rubels a month (about 8.5 dollars – the equivalent of average Moscow salary. Wages elsewhere in Russia are twice as lower). Unfortunately, when I interviewed him in October he was not paid for the previous month. When will he get his salary? “We are not even blind guessing anymore,” he says.
Average salary of a cosmonaut stands at 300-350 dollars – naturally, when the cosmonaut is not an active one. But in late January this year, Talgat Musubayev and Nikolai Budarin received over 100 dollars for each day of their work at Mir. Plus bonuses, for instance, 1000 dollars for every exit into outer space. But Dimitriev complains about the West more than about his home country.
“Cooperation with Americans is not profitable. They arrive to Russia to steal our technologies. We had to fly into space for 30 years to learn all that, and what about them? Damn it!!! They are coming here to get ready-to-use solutions,” he shouts. I try to protest. “They were the first ones to land on the Moon, not you,” I try to provoke him.
“Do you know that we have loads of equipment better than the Western one?,” he responds “Take our Buran space shuttle as an example”. He is echoed by Sivak who happily notices me again. “Buran was much more precise than American shuttles,” they argue. “When a US-made shuttle returns from the orbit it has to use its engines to land in Florida. The trajectory of our flight is computed so precisely that it flies from the orbit like a glider with no engines”.
- We drew a dot on the runway. Coming back from its space journey, Buran came down… a meter behind the dot, two meters to the right! - boasts an excited engineer.
- So what - I say - if Buran is not used anymore.
- Unfortunately, with better rockets and shuttles, we are unable to compete with the Americans. We cannot afford that - concludes Sivak.
A Cosmic Hook
Cosmonauts living in the Star City who get ready for space flights take physical and psychological tests at the centre (they remain in seclusion in a silence chamber for over a week). But at the same, they are also regular students. The curricula of the summer course covers 92 subjects ranging from ballistics and rocket construction technology to classical physics, medicine and strain physiology. The most non-standard subject studied by cosmonauts-to-be is survival, the art of surviving in extreme conditions on the Earth. Will it become practical in space? If a ground-based operator errs by a fraction of a second during landing, the capsule with cosmonauts will not touch down in Kazakhstan but will plunge into the Pacific or Siberian taiga. In such circumstances, cosmonauts will have to cope on their own for several days before they are retrieved by a rescue team. That is why, a mandatory kit of every cosmonaut features angling hooks and survival manuals. The book recommends ant soup as a meal available in tropical countries.
A Wringed Cosmonaut
We move on to the next building whose shape and size resembles the Polish parliament. Its interiors reveal an oversized centrifuge. “When the rocket takes off, the body of the cosmonaut is subject to massive forces,” explains Aleksiey Sokolov who conducts research on the impact of gravitation on the human body. The effect resembles an agile car. When you drive off from the lights with squealing tyres, weightlessness pushes all passengers deep into their seats. Launching of a rocket resembles the same effect. The only difference is acceleration generated by a spaceship which is many times bigger. A cosmonaut experiences a feeling that the ground gravitation suddenly increases manifold. Some are prone to overload less and some more, loosing conscience or vomiting. There is only one way to test the body’s reaction to this state on the ground. Cosmonauts-to-be are locked inside a small capsule. There is a comfortable armchair inside it with safety belts firmly holding the tested individual in place. An 18-meter long arm connects the capsule with a massive engine. When the engine starts, the capsule and the cosmonaut inside it sway around a giant room at a speed reaching 270 km/h. If you have ever taken a ride on a crazy merry-go-around on a fun fair, you realise how a man can be impacted by centrifugal force. Mind you, the centrifuge at the Star City generates overload 30-fold than the earthy one where every cell of your body weights 30 times its standard weight.
“Nobody is able to survive such overload,” says Sokolov. “The heart would fail first. It would not be able to pump blood dense as mercury. Eventually, as a result of massive overload, the body of a cosmonaut would be squashed. The biggest overload ever applied to man was 12g. Equipment launched into space it tested at 20g. A cosmonaut sitting inside the capsule is connected to over a dozen measurement devices. Readers record his/her health status all the time (Readers fail all the time. Eventually, we would like to replace them with computers – they say at Star City). Trainees are also subject to non-stop monitoring of a television camera (It does happen that candidates get unconscious). “Normal breathing was the biggest challenge,” recalls Tomasz Szczepaniak who arrived at Star City as a finalist of the cigarette promotion event. “I felt as if someone sat on my chest. At 3 g I was not even able to hold my face together,” he laughs.
- This is the world’s only giant centrifuge and we are proud of it - says Sivak.
“The capsule accelerates to 270 km/h in barely 6 seconds. During breaking, 95 per cent of consumed energy is recycled to the network,” admits Sokolov. The device was constructed by Swedish ASEA in 1975 on commission of Russian authorities. The centrifuge weights 300 tonnes and Sivak believes that it cost 60 million dollars. No one is eager to confirm his theory but rumours spread by several Western sources have it that Russia paid for the device with gold and precious stones.
- And do you have a lot of work here? – I ask
- There is little going on since Gorbachev. There are days when we remain idle - respond employees.
No wonder that a tennis court is fitted into a corner of the giant room.
A Pre-Washed Cosmonaut
There are two methods to reproduce the effect of weightlessness on the Earth. You either have to spend twenty-something seconds inside a diving plane (a man falls down as quickly as the plane so it feels like he is freely floating inside it) or submerge in water. The Star City is extremely proud of the world’s only customised Ilyushin 72 MDK plane which dives from 11,000 to 7,000 meters and the world’s biggest (couldn’t be otherwise) pool dedicated to underwater training. I’ve heard stories about the plane, but got a chance to see the pool myself. It is 12 meters deep and 23 meters in diameter. Submerged mock-ups of Mir station, Soyuz and Progress spaceships stand on the bottom of the pool in warm (30 Centigrade) crystal-clear water. Each and every crew flying into the space has to get its share of soaking there. One of the most frequently practised activities is blockage of the entrance to Mir station. It turns out that a simple task “use the hammer” is simple in theory only. A man in a weightless state finds it difficult to keep his balance – not to mention such violent movements as slamming a heavy tool! The force of weightlessness sways future cosmonauts leftwards and rightwards. Usually two divers support one cosmonaut in the pool. They catch unsuccessful hammer operators and put them back at the station’s platform.
“After several months of training and several dozen hours spent underwater they will be able to produce jewellery with those hammers,” laughs a technician operating a compressor filling in diving tanks. Cosmonauts train in the pool clad in genuine spacesuits. This makes their task even more strenuous as a man wearing a spacesuit weights some 240 kilos. Even the best fitted suit models make work in open space a massive effort. During each exit into space the heart of the cosmonauts beats twice as faster as inside the spaceship – 120-160 times a minute. And a cosmonaut usually spends some three to seven hours in outer space! That is why, one need to be as fit as a rake to pass strenuous tests and be qualified for a space flight. Spacesuits are available in one size only. They come with a slightly rigid torso but feature easily extendable sleeves and legs. Some requirements apply though - a cosmonaut cannot he taller than 180 cm or shorter than 160 cm. “There is fixed temperature of 18oC inside the spacesuit, whereas space temperature in outer space ranges from +450oC (in the sun) to -156oC (in the shade),” says Vladimir Kolesnikov, a Star City engineer specialising in spacesuits.
A spacesuit costs about 60,000-90,000 dollars (“It’s been long time since we ordered new ones”). “It would be incredible to design a spacesuit that would endure such temperature differences!,” stresses Sivak. Kolesnikov’s assistant proudly adds, “It takes three people and 25 minutes to put on a US-made spacesuit. A Russian cosmonaut puts a spacesuit himself in just three minutes”.
Still, I have a feeling that American spacesuits are lighter. When I visited Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, an unemployed actor wearing a bona fide spacesuit walked amid visitors and invited them to take photos. That would be a challenge in a Russian spacesuit weighting well above 100 kilos.
Foreign-Made Nails
In the evening I take a walk ashore a small lake within the premises of the Star City. The water surface mirrors lofty prefabricated blocks of flats. Their shape resembles a space rocket. On the far side of the lake, a hundred meters behind my back, stand newly-erected spacey wooden villas overlooking neatly trimmed lawns and mountain bikes on verandas. Two men are angling on the shore. They are eager to talk to me but are reluctant to reveal their names to a foreign journalist. I ask them about wooden houses at the back. They say that US cosmonauts reside in wooden lodges. “They brought those prefabricated houses from Canada and put them up in a month’s time. They even brought foreign nails with them. Then, they brought their families and live here for peanuts. They take parabolic flights and train in the pool. ”
- But they pay for themselves, don’t they? – I interrupt.
- Perhaps they do, but they wouldn’t be here if they didn’t smell money. ⇒
Article was published in Gazeta Wyborcza.
Translated from Polish by Agnieszka Chroscicka
