Cosmonaut Stranded on Mir in 1991 Now Heads Rescue Mission to ISS (mashable.com) 27
An anonymous readers this surprising story from Mashable:
When a Russian spaceship docked as a lifeboat for three stranded men at the International Space Station in February, one may have wondered if Sergei Krikalev, heading the rescue mission, felt any deja vu.
If that name doesn't ring a bell, he's also sometimes known as "the last Soviet" for his more than 311 days spent in space as the Soviet Union collapsed 250 miles beneath him in 1991. He was only meant to be at the Mir station for five months. Instead, he remained for close to a year, never abandoning the outpost.
Today, Krikalev, the former cosmonaut, is the executive director of human spaceflight for the Russian space agency. That means it's on his watch to make sure NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin get back home safely after their ship sprang a leak at the station in December 2022. The three marooned crew members were supposed to return this month. But their mission will now stretch for a year, until a new crew arrives to relieve them on a separate spacecraft in six months.
Krikalev's story of being stranded in space is now getting a perhaps overdue spotlight with a new podcast series called "The Last Soviet." And it's being told by another cosmonaut, Lance Bass.... Few may remember that boy-band member Bass almost made it to space on a Soyuz spacecraft himself. In 2002, he spent about six months, off and on, training in Star City, Russia, and was certified by Russia and NASA to fly a mission to the space station.
If that name doesn't ring a bell, he's also sometimes known as "the last Soviet" for his more than 311 days spent in space as the Soviet Union collapsed 250 miles beneath him in 1991. He was only meant to be at the Mir station for five months. Instead, he remained for close to a year, never abandoning the outpost.
Today, Krikalev, the former cosmonaut, is the executive director of human spaceflight for the Russian space agency. That means it's on his watch to make sure NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin get back home safely after their ship sprang a leak at the station in December 2022. The three marooned crew members were supposed to return this month. But their mission will now stretch for a year, until a new crew arrives to relieve them on a separate spacecraft in six months.
Krikalev's story of being stranded in space is now getting a perhaps overdue spotlight with a new podcast series called "The Last Soviet." And it's being told by another cosmonaut, Lance Bass.... Few may remember that boy-band member Bass almost made it to space on a Soyuz spacecraft himself. In 2002, he spent about six months, off and on, training in Star City, Russia, and was certified by Russia and NASA to fly a mission to the space station.
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Re: Star Treck III: The Search for the Divacup (Score:1)
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Seriously, dude, what the hell did that guy do to live rent-free between your ears?
Umm (Score:5, Funny)
Shouldn't they use a cosmonaut with a track record of not getting stranded. Just saying. ...
yes yes I get it,. lighten up. jeeze.
He was never stranded on MIR (Score:3)
He was just waiting to help Bruce Willis gas up before the final leg of the mission.
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Unfortunately Bruce Willis appears to have forgotten about the mission altogether.
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Too soon man. Too soon.
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Yep, that's the image and character that always comes to mind whenever I hear of that last Cosmonaut :-)
"marooned" (Score:4, Insightful)
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Just Russia in general — and Roscosmos [theins.ru] in particular — trying to stay relevant... And not just to the war crime-prosecutors.
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they seemed almost happy about it.
It's either that or Bakhmut.
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During interviews with the "marooned" crew, none of them seemed particularly broken up about having to spend extra time in space, they seemed almost happy about it.
NASA: We're really sorry, but you're going to have to spend an extra three months on the ISS.
Me: That's great!!!
Re:"marooned" (Score:4, Informative)
Soyuz MS-23 is already docked and ready to take cosmonauts back home, so they aren't marooned. For a while there was no safety craft docked with the station, because Soyuz MS-22 had micro-meteorite damage. The NASA astronaut who was supposed to come back on Soyuz MS-22 had his seat moved to a SpaceX craft instead.
In the event of an emergency where the station had to be abandoned, the two Russian cosmonauts would have used the damaged Soyuz craft. Due to the cooling loop failure it was uncomfortably hot inside, but survivable. Having only two of them would have helped with the heat. So they were never really stuck there, it's just that getting back was risky so they waited for MS-23.
"never abandoning the outpost" (Score:3)
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He had the choice to emulate Lawrence Oates:
"I am just going outside. I may be some time."
The lone cosmonaut in "Armegeddon" (Score:2)
Now I know who they based that character off of.
Might as well say 'the last nazi' (Score:2)
Russian Imperialism created the Soviet Union, and Russian Imperialism survived its collapse. It is a cancer on the world, the war in Ukraine being only its latest metastasis. The Russian world is a corrupt, totalitarian hellscape on par with Naziism, where individual rights don't exist and human life is expendible.
Calling someone "The Last Soviet" has the same energy as calling someone "The Last Nazi".
No good person should or would appreciate it.
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As shitty as Russia is, it is a bog standard dictatorship. They are trying to cosplay totalitarianism nowadays, but they suck at it as much as they suck at everything else.
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Well, technically the same could be said about Nazi Germany, ya know...
Though they did have kick-ass engineering. And a lot more efficiency. But aside of them making the killing of people more efficient and mechanical...
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Nope, it can't, even technically. Nazi Germany had a clearly defined and universal ideology. This is a cornerstone for the definition of a totalitarian state. Russia has an old and ill dictator whose pathetic attempts at find an ideology after two decades of trying to make people as apolitical as possible doesn't go much beyond "the west has gays".
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Nazi Germany did have a defined ideology, but didn't really make a lot of use of it in the end. That's not very different from Russia, even though the ideology behind it is a bit less "public". Both have pretty much the same fundamental idea behind it: Former greatness needs to be reestablished and we need to be greater than before. That's the foundation for both of them. Both also have an external enemy, for the Nazis that was the Bolshevik, for Russia it is "the West". There's also an internal enemy, for
Re: Might as well say 'the last nazi' (Score:2)
Russia has only started indoctrinating its population and its youth several months into the war after the attempt at Blitzkrieg failed. The indoctrination is inconsistent and constantly changes the message. And unlike Hitler, a true believer, Putin simply wanted to boost his ratings after the covid fiasco. The war didn't even have clearly defined goals and still hasn't. A totalitarian government would have called it a righteous war from the start and would rally the population to participate. Russia tried t
Nobody worried? (Score:2)
Lance Bass to continue... (Score:1)
I remember! And Slashdot's story that the trip wouldn't be happening had one of my favourite headlines ever: Lance Bass to Continue to Plague Earth's Surface [slashdot.org]