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Space

Pranks Show Lighter Side of Mir 69

Mark Padro writes "www.The Moscow Times has posted this article. In one instance ...Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov managed to chat to a truck driver on a road in South Africa as he flew hundreds of kilometers overhead in 1992... It's a good article with other funny Mir stories." Oh those wacky cosmonauts. Ya know, hiding booze around the space station is an early warning sign of alcoholism.
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Pranks Show Lighter Side of Mir

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    Both high altitude and drinking alcohol dehydrates you. Furthermore, the alcohol increases triglyseride levels in your blood, which increases the chance of lethal bloodclots.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25, 2001 @10:03AM (#341441)
    It was the dawn of the third age of mankind, ten years into the cold war. The Mir Project was a dream given form. Its goal, to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and alcohol could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call - home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and IP laws. Humans and alcohol wrapped in two million, 140 thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Mir stations. The year is 2001. The name of the place is space station Mir.
  • I'm wondering if ISS isn't going to end up a spectacular failure.

    I've read that NASA has learned that nearly twice as many spacewalks will be required to maintain the ISS, as was originally planned, so NASA is developing a robot to hopefully pick up the slack from normal manned operations.

    If NASA can't get this robot to work, and/or the US Govt. cuts NASA's funding low enough (which seems to be the leaning of the current administration), we may not even be able to maintain the ISS (let alone maintain a staffing level sufficient for any decent science). So maybe Taco Bell shouldn't roll up that sign too quickly. . .
  • Yo! Check it out!
    $lynx -head http://www.themoscowtimes.com

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 05:02:33 GMT
    Server: Apache/1.3.12 (Unix) (Red Hat/Linux)
    Connection: close
    Content-Type: text/html

    At least they weren't so slashdotted that lynx could connect :>
  • Just an addendum...
    I did a Betterwhois on themoscowtimes, and they are indeed registered from RU.
    Pretty slick site given the culture and location.
    Good writing, too. Better mastery of english than is usually seen here :)
  • Somehow I get the idea they were on the 11 meter band (27.185Mhz Narrow AM) ;)
  • CBS brings you the story on the coverup of how Mir debris entering the atmosphere caused breast cancer in these women! "Mir almost killed me, and I want them to pay for it."
    Steven E. Ehrbar
  • IIRC, it was an american astronaut, who bumped into the MIR while docking. Who gave him a driver's license?

    Szo
  • Which one? The alcoholic Russians or the gun carrying Merkins?
  • It looks like the Russians beat NASA in testing for effects of alcohol on astronauts in space. Will we be finding any brandy on the ISS?
  • just in case you don't get the parent, it's a parody of the opening monologe of the first season of Babylon 5.

    It was the dawn of the third age of mankind, ten years after the Earth/Minbari war. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal, to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call - home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5. - Commander Sinclair

    http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/universe/setting-1.h tml [midwinter.com]

    there's also an ac sibling in here that's a parody of the season 3 opening [midwinter.com]

  • Can't for the life of me remember whether it was Mir or another Russian space vehicle, but I saw the suggestion a while ago that, erm, the 'romantic' possibilities of zero gravity were first tested by Russian cosmonauts with too much time on their hands.

    Apparently it helps to be strapped to a wall, or you tend to float towards one rather quickly :)
  • by Kartoffel ( 30238 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @12:19PM (#341452)
    Dragonfly [amazon.com], by Bryan Burrough.
  • by Kartoffel ( 30238 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @12:15PM (#341453)
    Actually, Soyuz spacecraft have a gun onboard as part of the standard kit. It's included in the emergency kit along with first aid supplies and survival equipment in case of a landing in some remote area. The gun has a folding stock with that doubles as a saw, and it has two barrels, one for signal flares and one that fires a real bullet. The design requirement was that it should be powerful enough to stop a bear if the Soyuz crew ever found themselves stranded in the wilderness after a landing, although I doubt it's really that big.
  • ...posting no more Mir stories, once it dropped. ;)

    It's things like this that help to remind us that the space program is FUN! Russians on the CB, Mars Explorers that should appear on Battlebots.... Good stuff.
  • The driver rogered "See you in Kapstadt," as he signed off.

    Just to be pedantic, that should be "Kaapstad"

  • Hehe.. I've tried that ski vacation thing too.. The positive effects of getting drunk with less booze are normally neutralized by the high price of alcohol at after-ski places.. So you end up getting drunk for the same price as sea level(unless sea-level is at a high price holiday resort..). Oh well, It was fun trying to come down an ice slope after quite a few beers in St. Anton.. I stayed up, of course, but a friend of mine didn't(I had skis, he was boarding)...
  • Taking 7+ hour plane trips close to two dozen times a year I can say based on empirical studies that effects of alcohol seem intensified at high altitudes. I recall reading somewhere that the thinner air causes you to get drunk easier, or something.. Don't know how the atmospheric pressure or level of oxygen was at mir, though.
  • by AiX2 ( 90563 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @10:04AM (#341458) Homepage
    Themoscowtimes.com doesn't work for me. However this [moscowtimes.ru] should be the same article.

    --Ryan
  • Actually the most popular band for ground to shuttle/sat is the 2meter band.
    --
  • It was probably 2meter ham radio. They had the equipment up there and talked on it often. I even had the chance to talk to them myself on a little handheld radio. Most truckers have them now adays.
    --
  • Check out this site [geek-ware.co.uk] for some more info on other problems mir had in it's lifetime :-)
  • Ham Radio was carried aboard Mir as part of the mission. The ISS has a 2-meter ham antenna fitted to it, and several Shuttle misssons have carried Ham Radio.
  • by FTL ( 112112 ) <slashdot@neil.fras[ ]name ['er.' in gap]> on Sunday March 25, 2001 @10:07AM (#341463) Homepage
    Took just a few minutes to slashdot that server. Here is a mirror [digitalroutes.co.uk] based on what I was able to download.
    --
  • Russia will see this as an attack from the USA, and now we're back into the Cold War. Thanks a lot /. !
  • by Mr_Icon ( 124425 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @12:49PM (#341465) Homepage

    FOX Channel brings you a provocative documentary: Mir re-entry was faked! Join us tonight as we explore the web of secrets and cover-ups and learn the never-before-heard truth about the Mir space-station and what really happened in March 2001.

  • Which makes them smarter than us -- few Americans will admit that we have too many impulsive gun nuts. Ya know, we may have a few too many gun nuts as you are quick to point out BUT we have way more alcoholics than 'gun nuts'. What really makes them smarter than us is that they realize how much of a problem alcoholism really is.

  • Was the crash incident really due to fatigue as stated in the press releases at the time or was it a result of the first DUI in space?

  • The cosmonauts aren't the only ones gabbing on the amateur radio bands -- many US astronauts are also licensed amateurs and talk via ham radio with amateurs on the ground. Ham radio's first flight into space was back in 1983, and ham radios have been taken on more than two dozen space shuttle missions. Astronauts even talk to thousands of school children and even their families using SAREX, the Space Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment. Future plans for ham radio in the space program includes its place on the International Space Station.
  • Any truth to the rumor they were vacuum-distilling their own hooch there? Any leftovers would explain the bluish tinge to the reentry flames, I guess....
  • Apparently the site is slashdoted (I can't get any response from it). Anyone have a mirror?

    Perhaps they should have brought down mir by simply slashdotting it instead of wasting so much $ on a controlled crash? :)
  • by jedwards ( 135260 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @10:02AM (#341471) Homepage Journal
    Friday, Mar. 23, 2001. Page 4

    Pranks Show Lighter Side of Mir

    By Simon Saradzhyan

    Staff Writer

    Working in an old tin can 300 kilometers above the Earth is serious business, but even so the occupants of the Mir space station have shared a few lighthearted moments during the ship's 15-year life.

    The fun times were not all inspired by the videos and bottles of brandy sent up to help the cosmonauts and astronauts unwind after a day of grind aboard the station, which was to be dumped into the Pacific Ocean on Friday morning.

    Between experiments, the crew played jokes on newcomers and even on unsuspecting people back on Earth.

    One favorite prank was tapping on the station's window to knock off space dust. With the sun's rays brightly illuminating the particles of dust and no background to judge their size, the cosmonauts easily tricked newcomers into believing that nothing less than UFOs were slowly passing by.

    Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov managed to chat to a truck driver on a road in South Africa as he flew hundreds of kilometers overhead in 1992.

    Krikalyov sneaked an amateur radio onboard Mir and used it to establish a link with the truck driver, who was heading to Kimberley.

    The unsuspecting driver thought it was one of his colleagues driving on a nearby road and called Krikalyov a prankster when the cosmonaut said was he was heading for America via India and China.

    Despite Krikalyov's efforts to explain that he was actually talking from high above, the South African refused to believe the cosmonaut. The driver rogered "See you in Kapstadt," as he signed off.

    Such pranks, however, were arguably dwarfed by a joke that cosmonaut Alexei Leonov pulled on a crewmate in a two-man spacecraft that was a predecessor to Mir.

    Leonov's comrade accidentally locked himself in a compartment. He spent several minutes banging on the locked door and shouting, only to hear Leonov finally murmur: "Who's there?" recalls Russian space agency spokesman Vyacheslav Mikhailichenko.

    When the Mir crew ran out of alcohol reserves, they would often go on "treasure-seeking" expeditions for more, tearing down interior panels to find bottles hidden by previous crews, said Alexander Poleshchuk, who spent six months on board Mir in 1993.

    "Sometimes we would bump into a bottle of cognac. What a joy it was," Poleshchuk said in a recent interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda.

    But unlike cosmonauts -- who for luck urinate on the back tire of the bus that takes them to the launch pad -- the officials who command them from Mission Control near Moscow prefer to remain "serious" and "concentrated," said Viktor Blagov, Mir's deputy control chief.

    "No, we don't do anything like that on our control panels," Blagov added, laughing.

  • We are


    ________

  • Ya know, hiding booze around the space station is an early warning sign of alcoholism.

    You obviously don't know many Russians. Most of them would say that an early sign is Vodka in the nursing bottle!

    __

  • Excuse me, where did I say or imply "All Russians are alcoholics"? It's one thing to avoid stereotyping cultural groups, it's quite another to pretend that a severe social problem doesn't exist. Any intelligent Russian will bet the first to admit that they have too many alchoholics.

    Which makes them smarter than us -- few Americans will admit that we have too many impulsive gun nuts.

    __

  • I wondered how long it would take somebody to trot out the NRA party line.

    I see no point in firing up the usual Guns-are-freedom versus Guns-are-death flame war. I have made no statements for or against gun control, nor do I intend to. The guns are there, people die as result of their being there. That's all I've said. If the implications of these facts bother you, that's your problem.

    __

  • by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @02:04PM (#341476) Homepage Journal
    Well, the average Russian consumes the equivalent of 4 gallons of pure alcohol a year. That's more than any country on the planet, and about twice what the average American consumes. Every year, 34,000 Russians die from simple ethanol toxicity. That's about ten times the number in the US.

    About 32,000 Americans are killed by guns every year. I can't find a similar figure for Russia. They do have a lot more violent deaths than the U.S., but it's mostly organized crime stuff, not the casual violence we're so fond of. And only one Russian household in 20 has any kind of firearm, as opposed to 1 in 2 in the U.S. There are 200 million privately-owned guns in the U.S.

    I think when it comes to life-shortening stupidity, the two countries are neck and neck, though each excels in specific areas.

    __

  • Yes, now if it crashes over a city, we have drunken cosmonauts to blame.

    Oops.
    --
  • Have I been up too late or does any one else parse "themoscowtimes" as "Them OS Cow Times"

    ... just wondering

    MAB


  • That one's even better. :)
    Now break out the ol' perl anagram finder.....


  • by Denial of Service ( 199335 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @11:49AM (#341480)
    I wonder if they wrote their names in urine...

    You bet. That Vyacheslav Trubitsin was quite a man.

    ---

  • It's not a CB, per se. It's well known that the Russians passed the time playing on several amateur radio modes. I heard more that one rumour that the ground controllers fired up R0MIR beacons for the last few passes.
  • Man, I could really use some space-cognac right now. I hope it doesn't taste like Tang.
  • and your mirror seems slasdotted.
  • Sometimes, drinking and driving is freaking hilarious. Like at a carnival, driving bumper cars drunk. Or the time a buddy of mine got hammered and drove a tractor around the hayfield. There were no cows or people to hit, so trust me buddy, it was VERY amusing.
    Yes you have to choose your moments for this type of hilarity and make sure you take very stringent precautions and make sure that everyone agrees.
    I remember (just) driving go-karts (not serious ones you understand) on a closed off track with my friends when we had ingested all manner of substances both legal and illegal.(er.... Name a letter and it was probably present in one or more of our blood streams)
    We're still arguing about who won the race as some of us can't remember the start bit, the middle bit or the end bit. Some can't remember different combinations of the above.
    Everyone, however, agrees that we had a monster amount of laughs and no-one got hurt.

    Just take the precautions before ingesting anything which may affect your judgement or perception of personal risk.

    Ian

    Discaimer I'm probably gonna get flamed now. So before anyone starts: I do not, have never and will not promote the use, while under the influence of any substance, of heavy machinery, cars, trucks or other such items where there is any chance of anyone who does not choose of their own free will and without coercion, while not under the influence to be hurt, offended or encouraged to engage in said activities. Driving under the influence of anything other than water may be injurious to health, illegal or both.

    In other words; Don't try this at home, don't involve anyone who doesn't want to be and please, let's be careful out there.

  • Does anybody know the physical effects of alchohol at this altitude and low gravity environments? Every time I have flown to LAX (I live in AUS) I've been warned about excess alcohol cosumption at high altitude
    It's not so much the high altitude as the lack of pressure. I know planes are pressurised to about 10,000 feet IIRC but I don't know about MIR. Maybe they held it at a lower pressure to reduce the stress on the seals etc.
    Does anyone have any relevant info?

    I personnally tested this effect on a mountain at about 12,000 feet some years ago and I can report that yes, alcohol does have a greater effect on the brain at lower atmospheric pressure.

    All in the name of scientific advancement and the improvement of the human condition of course....

    Ian

  • They're a motley crew of former Senate staffers. Mostly men, a few women.
  • Ya know, hiding booze around the space station is an early warning sign of alcoholism.

    On that note, I begin "To Steer a Mir you clearly need a beer" by The Capitol Steps [capsteps.com]:

    (sung to the tune of that "Plains in Spain" song from "My Fair Lady"; TT text is sung by cosmonauts.)

    To Steer a Mir you clearly need a beer.
    Comrades have got it?
    Comrades have got it!
    How do you get from there to here?
    We will steer! we will steer!
    Yeah, and what is crystal clear?
    Our beer! Our beer!
    YEAH!
    To Steer a Mir you clearly need a beer!
    Houston, we have a drinking problem!
    Objects in Mir are nearer than they appear!

  • Well, hiding booze wasn't the only thing they were doing up there. Remember a little while back they were growing fungus up there too. I'm sure they were all singin' "We all live in a Yellow Space Station..." at some point in time.

    Ah, the russians sure knew how to live it up there, unlike their stiff-assed colleages from America.

    Etot poezd v ogne, i nam ne na chto bol'she zhat' -- Akvarium

  • Kto-nibud

    Kto-to

    Kozli! Vezde!

  • How'd that work with the women?

    "Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
  • Kruchev: Sir, our propaganda dissemination office has been Slashdotted! Rise from you cryochamber!

    Lenin: Must crush capitalism!

    Thanks a lot taco...
  • >cosmonauts - who for luck urinate on the back tire of the bus that takes them to the launch pad

    Actually, IIRC, the bus stops on the way to the launch pad at the exact spot
    at which Yuri Gagarin stopped to take a leak before his historic flight, and the cosmonauts then urinate on the {sidewalk | grass | tree | snow} at that point.
    Done for luck and in honour of Gagarin.

  • The coverage of the demise of Mir did remind me of 'Sleeping in the light' with the reunion of an american and russian crew and the sad faces at russian mission control...
  • Drinking and driving is never amusing. I am ashamed that slashdot is promoting it in this way.

    Not amusing? Sounds like you either need to drink more, or drive faster.

  • Even though the .com server is slashdotted, you can try it at the .ru server of the moscow times here [themoscowtimes.ru]
  • for cosmonauts to be able to talk via radio(usually Amateur Radio, better known as Ham Radio) to regular persons on the ground??? Our astronauts do that quite often, and it's revered as very prestigous to be able to talk to an astronaut via radio. Nothing silly about that at all. Those cosmonauts probably got extremely lonely up there orbiting the planet and should and were able to do things like this. Way to go Taco.

  • the first DUI in space?

    Shouldn't that be FUI? (Floating...)

  • This is a long lament on the universality of foolish politicians.

    The Russian Duma, being of a significantly more nationalist and less realistic bent than the Kremlin, is continually attempting to ignore reality with respect to their space program. Check the link at http://www.nasawatch.com [nasawatch.com] to Pravda [pravda.ru], where an official communication of the Duma has already asked for the RASA (Russian Aeronautics and Space Administration) chief's head for allowing their station to go down.

    Other interesting points to take away from their communique:

    * They absolutely refuse to consider the possibility that they didn't have the money to keep Mir operational or even in a safe orbit.

    * They already want a new station. Never mind that there were only four core modules built: The MIR core module, now half-melted in the South Pacific; the training module, sitting in Star City and needed for ISS training; the Zvezda service module (which is an updated MIR core module); and the mock-up, sitting in a museum (not sure which). Remember how much trouble getting Zvezda built was?

    * Remember how like pulling teeth it was to get the money for Zvezda out of the *very same Duma*? They want the nationalism and prestige of a space program, but they don't want to pay for it. They want to pay for MIR 2 by "letting the Americans pay our share of ISS costs". Let's think about this a second... we just found out that *we* are overbudget, we are stretching *our* contribution out to who knows when (2007 for completion now? 2008?), and they want us to pay their whole share, so they can throw up a competing station? On what planet do these people think they are living on?

    * They are concerned about insane things like "we can't use the ISS for military purposes". (Exactly how did they use Mir for military purposes? Skylab? Salyut? Spy satellites and commsats are *so* much more cost efficient for military use that this isn't even funny.)

    The general Russian thought on ISS comes down to something like this:

    RUSSIAN DUMA: What happen?

    RUSSIAN MISSION CONTROL: Someone set up us the re-entry!

    RUSSIAN MISSION CONTROL: We get signal from Houston.

    RUSSIAN DUMA: What!

    RUSSIAN MISSION CONTROL: Main screen turn on.

    AMERICAN MISSION CONTROL: How are you gentlemen!!

    AMERICAN MISSION CONTROL: All your space stations are belong to us.

    RUSSIAN DUMA: What you say??

    AMERICAN MISSION CONTROL: You are on the path to insignificance.

    AMERICAN MISSION CONTROL: You have no chance to economically recover make your time.

    RUSSIAN DUMA: Take off every 'MIR 2'.

    RUSSIAN DUMA: You know what you doing.

    RUSSIAN DUMA: Move 'MIR 2' for great justice.

    This is so close to the typical Duma member's thought patterns that I can't decide if it's funny or not....

    Your friendly neighborhood nitpicker,

    Allen Bryan,

  • If you are like me, in the way that you find stories such as these interesting, you should check out "The Race", a book by James Schefter. Its mostly about the US Space program back in the earlier days of it, but its a good read.
  • When you are in a commercial airplane, you are in a pressurized cabin. You aren't really at a 'high altitude', your body just thinks that you are at sea level. If you want to look at the effects of high altitudes on your body with regard to drinking, then go to a ski lodge halfway up a mountain somewhere and break out some congac. Being on a ski vacation amplifies the alchohol, I don't know that the altitude does.

    My personal opinion is that the disturbance of being on a plane, the stress of shuffling around your baggage and swapping time zones, and maybe the stress of motion might all contribute to you getting a little drunker on a commercial flight. I don't think that it can be attributed to alchol because you're in a pressurized cabin.

    -Keslin [keslin.com], the naked nerd girl

  • On a serious note (well, kind of serious).

    Does anybody know the physical effects of alchohol at this altitude and low gravity environments? Every time I have flown to LAX (I live in AUS) I've been warned about excess alcohol cosumption at high altitude. Maybe the cosmonauts should have documented the effects and dubbed it "Serious Scientific Research".
  • cosmonauts who for luck urinate on the back tire of the bus that takes them to the launch pad

    Looks like they not only drank while they were onboard the space station, but before launch as well. I wonder if they wrote their names in urine....
  • I don't knoiw how'd that worked with women, but pissing on tire is a good luck tradition started by Gagarin. Since he first pissed on a tire of the bus and returned safely - every cosmonaut did the same just in case. Just harmless superstitions that many professions have.
  • What the...first off, you don't 'drive' Mir. It's a space station. Secondly, I would imagine that the pressures of a job like that would lead me to drink. They are not promoting drinking and driving with their comments, it was only a joke. Why are YOU ashamed if you don't work for the site, btw?
  • by deuxdrop ( 409942 ) on Sunday March 25, 2001 @10:00AM (#341505)
    the titanium balls that were supposedly 'fuel' containers - were actually not titanium. The Russian government, in order to reduce expenses, actually purchased these containers from the Hatfields, it was surplus distillery equipment... and being so, it was used as such - i'm sure that tests on the surving, floating balls will show high levels of alcohol in them.
  • Were the Mir cosmonauts really sober enough to operate that thing? I mean, hell. If they weren't feeding EXCLUSIVELY off vodka and bistro or whatever the hell it is they eat, then that thing would still be in the sky.


  • "MIR in the Sky" (sung to the tune, "Spirit in the Sky")

    (Russian man singing, broken English)

    When I die, and they lay me to rest

    Want to go to place that is best

    When they tell me it time to die

    Let it be anywhere but this MIR in the sky

    Help me get out of this MIR in the sky (MIR in the sky)

    If I stay this is where I die (where I die)

    If I die maybe they name for me a Cape

    or put picture on roll of fancy duct tape

    Where rescue ship here, am ready to go

    They better not repair ship and leave-us

    Siberian winter sweet by and by

    Compared to this hell called MIR in the Sky

    Help me get out of this MIR in the Sky (MIR in the sky)

    If I stay here is where I die (where I die)

    But if I die here, mission not big waste

    I spend best years of life dodging floating toothpaste

    I look around and I get depressed

    But I have friend in Dr. Laura

    I tell her I down 'cause we just fly and fly

    She tell me shut up, deal with MIR in the Sky

    Help me get out of this MIR in the Sky (MIR in the sky)

    If I stay here is where I die (where I die)

    American say not worry, no big trouble

    Yeah, this from guy who probably built Hubble

    Others wonder what they do back in sweet motherland

    I just want to drink all that I can

    Then at night, look up, drinking vodka supply

    Laugh out loud at chumps still up in MIR in the sky




  • ...too bad noone took an infrared spectrum of the flames. Otherwise, very intense absorption at ~3000-3200cm^-1 would have revealed it all... :)

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