Astronauts are superstitious people. Book: Three from Sirius The fair half of humanity on board

Astronauts are considered to be the most superstitious people. The fact is that space flights are very dangerous. To protect themselves, these people are ready to do anything. They often perform peculiar rituals before a flight. Some of them look ridiculous and even funny, but the astronauts continue to believe that this will save them from harm.

For example, astronauts always take wormwood with them into space - a hardy plant that retains its scent for a long time, reminding crew members of their home planet. Astronauts are always escorted to the launch pad to the musical piece “Earth through the Porthole.”

Unlucky days

The first superstitions of astronauts were invented by the world famous design engineer S. Korolev. It was he who decided not to launch the devices on difficult days - Mondays, since this day is considered to be unlucky. S. Korolev always moved the flight to another day (any day) if it fell on Monday. Because of this, he had many conflicts with colleagues.

For the first three years of the “era of cosmonautics,” spacecraft did not take off on Mon. A little later, this tradition began to be forgotten. After the first launch took place on Monday, the ship crashed. Subsequently, more than ten accidents occurred during launches on “Black Mondays,” which is why experts decided to listen to Korolev. Since 1965, starts on Mondays have been officially prohibited. To this day, this tradition continues to be observed in Russia.

Baikonur has its unlucky days. For example, launches from this space airfield are never carried out on October 24. Moreover, various types of installation work are not carried out at the launch site on this day. The reason for this is the tragedy that occurred at Baikonur in 1960 on October 24 - the MBRR-16 carrier rocket exploded at the launch site. In 1963, on the same date, an R-9A rocket caught fire at Baikonur. All these incidents killed more than a dozen people.

"Happy Operator"

S. Korolev had another remarkable superstition, which is now called the “happy operator”. Korolev trusted the process of pressing the “start” button to only one person, considering it to bring happiness. This person was operator Smirnitsky. Not a single launch of a launch vehicle was carried out without this employee. Even when the launch was not supposed to be carried out on his shift, he was called, taking him away from his legal day off, so that he could press just one button.

In addition to the “happy operator”, Korolev had an “unlucky one”. On the day of the launch, S. Korolev strictly forbade one of his employees to come to the site. One day, something bad happened on his shift (no one remembers exactly what it was). After this, he was considered “unlucky.”

When do astronauts refuse to sign autographs?

An astronaut will never give an autograph before a flight. When he comes down to Earth, then please, but before the flight it is useless to persuade him. Some astronauts never sign autographs with black pens because the color black is considered unlucky and deadly. In the last few years, domestic crews began to sign a bottle of alcohol before a flight, which they drank after landing. This is considered a good sign, a guarantee that they will all return home alive.

Some astronauts leave an autograph on the door of the hotel room where they spend the night before launch. This tradition often infuriates maids, since these signatures cannot be erased.

Strong alcohol

An astronaut can drink alcohol for the first time in moderate quantities twelve days before the flight. It was then that the backup crew of Baikonur arrived on Earth for a “detention period.” Those who arrived as part of the backup crew were required to drink one hundred grams of pure alcohol. The main crew could afford no more than one glass of champagne.

The beautiful half of humanity is on board

As you know, the first female cosmonaut was Valentina Tereshkova. During her flight certain problems occurred. She couldn't control the controls. Fortunately, everything ended well, but after that women were not allowed into space for almost 30 years.

People with mustaches aren't allowed into space either.

When the mustachioed V. Zholobov went into unknown outer space, a problem occurred with the apparatus, so his mission had to be terminated ahead of schedule. Because of this, for several decades, people with mustaches were not allowed to fly, being considered potentially unlucky.

Strange superstitions

In modern times and in the past, a soft toy is sent into space along with astronauts. In addition to serving as a talisman, it has a practical purpose - it helps the crew determine when weightlessness sets in.

Cosmonauts and astronauts do not use the word "last". Instead they say "extreme" and something like that. The fact is that the word “last”, as they believe, entails death. By the way, this sign is found not only among astronauts, but also among people in other dangerous professions, for example, the military.

Before boarding the aircraft, those departing must wave to the spectators while standing on the stairs. To space airfield located on the territory of Plesetsk, before launching, the name of a certain woman Tanya is necessarily written on the carrier. It is generally accepted that this is what was written on the first rocket launched from there by a certain military man who was in love with a certain Tanya. One day, on the device being launched, they forgot to write the previously given word-name. After launch it exploded.

For 30 years on the eve of the flight, astronauts have been watching the same film: “White Sun of the Desert.” This superstition appeared after the tragic launch of a rocket launcher in 1971, when three astronauts (Volkov, Dobrovolsky, Patsaev) died. The next crew that went into space on Soyuz 12 returned home safe and sound. As it turned out later, all its members watched the above-mentioned film before the start.

The funniest superstition of astronauts and cosmonauts is the habit of relieving themselves on the wheel of the bus on which they got to the space site. airfield. Before an astronaut launches, his suit is sealed tightly, so he will have to endure a long time if he does not go to the toilet first. Some now believe that the founder of this tradition is Gagarin, others say that it came from Korolev. Before the launch, each cosmonaut received a “friendly kick” from the boss. Perhaps this is how they forced the first man to conquer space to get into a terrible apparatus - a rocket.

The fact that a heroic profession is impossible without humor is demonstrated by the numerous oddities that happen in astronautics. The conquerors of the Universe are ordinary people, if you do not take into account their exceptional courage and altruism. And, accordingly, they love to joke.
This is how the most fearless people on the planet had fun.

The crew members themselves were also not at a loss, they hid alcohol in the logbook, which turned out to be one of the convenient hidden places for cognac - with strong crusts, and even decorated with the coat of arms of the USSR. The astronauts tore out sheets of paper for notes, inserted a flat canister into the covers, sealed the end with paper, and drew with inspiration the edges of the pages with a pencil. At the entrance to the ship there was an officer who checked everything brought on board for compliance with the weight list, etc.

“They let our “flask for notes” through,” recalled Georgy Mikhailovich. - And only once the controller whispered: “Next time, pour the drink right up to the cork, otherwise the logbook will gurgle a lot.”

Owen Garriott's most famous prank. This astronaut worked at the orbital station as part of the Skylab crew in 1973. Going on the flight, he took with him a voice recorder, on which he recorded several phrases of his wife at home, so that he could hear her voice in orbit.

One day, once again getting in touch with the Mission Control Center, he decided to play a prank on officer Robert Crippen. Owen brought the recorder to the transmitter and turned it on. As a result, the following dialogue took place between the station and the center:
- Skylab, this is Houston, can you hear me?
“Good afternoon, Houston,” answered a cheerful female voice. - Skylab is listening.

The officer on Earth was stunned. He decided to clarify:
- Who's at the transmitter?
— Bob, this is Helen, Owen's wife.
Bob was silent for a while, wondering what was going on, and then asked:
- What are you doing over there?
— I decided to cook the guys something to eat. Fresh, homemade,” Helen “reassured” him.
The earth was silent for about a minute, then turned off. Apparently, the officer’s nerves could not stand it.

Thus, Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Valery Ryumin decided to amaze botanists around the world by demonstrating a cucumber grown in the greenhouse of the Mir station. The learned men were delighted: before this the plant had not even produced an ovary, but here there was a whole fruit. They asked me not to eat the cucumber. They began to think about how to deliver it to Earth. The scientific community was in ecstasy until the astronauts admitted that the vegetable was brought from Earth and demonstrated the orange they had secretly taken into orbit.

Kovalenok was repairing a malfunctioning VCR on Salyut-6, having forgotten to take out a cassette with the cosmonauts’ favorite film, “White Sun of the Desert.” Having repaired it, I let it warm up and in the meantime went about my business. About two minutes pass - and suddenly the thunderous voice of Comrade Sukhov echoes throughout the entire station: “Great, fathers!” Kovalenok exchanged glances with flight engineer Ivanchenkov. The first thought was: hallucinations began. Moreover, the phrase “We’ve been sitting here for a long time” followed, and the crew was in their hundredth day of flight...

This incident happened to Russian astronauts. According to tradition, upon returning from a flight, astronauts give their instructor something from things they have been in orbit. Often it is hours.

A couple of days before the end of the flight, Vladimir Lyakhov discovered that he had lost his watch and tried to find it every free minute. He checked every panel of the interior upholstery, expecting to find something missing. In the end, there was only one single untested panel left. It was secured with fifty bolts. Lyakhov spent several hours to promote them all. When he opened the panel, he found a note inside: “There is no clock here. Kovalenok! By the way, Lyakhov never found his watch that time.

Klimuk and Sevastyanov flew on Salyut-4 at a time when there were no visiting expeditions yet. Only double. Klimuk sailed to the ship on business and closed the hatch behind him. Sevastyanov needed to consult with the commander; he swam to the hatch and knocked on it. Klimuk from behind the hatch: “Who’s there?”

The Salyut-6 crew, Popov and Ryumin, decided to play a prank on the Mission Control Center. In one of the communication sessions, when he appeared in front of the television cameras, he was asked to wait a second. On Earth they were perplexed: who else are they waiting for? And they were dumbfounded when... the third cosmonaut emerged from the depths of the station! Moreover, accompanied by Ryumin’s dissatisfied muttering: “You’re always late.” As it turned out, it was just a spacesuit inflated with air, in which astronauts take off and return to Earth.

During one of the long flights, April 1st arrived. The astronauts, busy with work, somehow forgot about him. But the MCC operator is not. He said on board: “We don’t like telemetry, ventilate the station.” - "How?" - “Open the window for ten minutes.” The station finally realized about April Fools' Day and responded in kind. The next day, as luck would have it, the State Commission showed up at the MCC. They listen to the crew’s report - and at the phrase “...the station has been ventilated,” they literally “get stuck.” “What did you ventilate?” - “Station. According to the assignment." - "How???" - “They opened the window for ten minutes.” The State Commission flatly refused to understand “jokes of humor”, so upon returning to Earth the crew had a blast.

Salyut-7 flight engineer Vladimir Solovyov was once in orbit... beaten. With fists. It happened like this: the cosmonaut of the visiting expedition, Igor Volk, woke up before everyone else. I decided to warm up. In the work compartment, among the bags hanging there, he noticed one that seemed softer to him, and began to use it as a punching bag. And this turned out to be the sleeping bag in which Soloviev slept like a righteous man...

The unofficial champion of space jokes is considered to be astronaut Owen Garriott, who managed to thoroughly prank the Mission Control Center in Houston twice during one flight at the Skylab station. Can you imagine when, in the midst of a stream of boring technical data from the board, the lines suddenly appear: “Hell is in the middle of the Sun. We see the dead burning. We see hell! And then - as if nothing had happened.

On March 7, 1960, the first cosmonaut corps was formed. The 12 people enrolled in it, to whom eight more were later added, were selected from three and a half thousand Soviet pilots and went through many tests and trials before they got into this secret detachment. Later, out of 20 potential cosmonauts, six were selected based on the results of new tests. They were the ones who were to become the first Soviet cosmonauts. In this group were Yuri Gagarin, German Titov, Andriyan Nikolaev, Valery Bykovsky and Pavel Popovich, who made the first flights into space.

But there was a person in this group whose name is not so widely known: Grigory Nelyubov. At one time, he was considered third in the first group of cosmonauts and was a reserve during Gagarin’s first flight in history. But Nelyubov never got into space.

The Soviet space program was developed in the strictest secrecy. It was decided to recruit future space pioneers from fighter aircraft pilots. In the spring of 1959, the selection began. The personal files of all Soviet fighter aircraft pilots were carefully examined, and as a result, out of three and a half thousand people, it was decided to involve only 347 in the tests.

These people were interviewed directly at their place of service. Of course, in order to avoid leaks, no one told them what was required of them, did not provide any details, because the program was strictly secret. The pilots were simply asked if they would like to serve their Motherland in a special way and take part in testing the latest technology.

In addition, at the first stage, the pilots had to meet several criteria: be no older than 35 years old, have a height of no more than 175 centimeters, since it was problematic to accommodate a larger cosmonaut on the Vostok spacecraft.

Based on the results of the interviews, a group of 206 pilots was selected. They were to be subjected to an unprecedentedly thorough medical examination, as well as preparatory tests. 72 people changed their minds about participating in the trial. Such a serious medical examination could reveal some contraindications for flying, and they would have to say goodbye to their work.

The rest passed tests. By the end of the checks, 29 people remained from the original group. On March 7, 1960, 12 people, the most capable of the group, were enrolled in the first detachment, and they had to prepare for the first flights. A little later, eight more were added to this group.

These first 12 people enlisted in the cosmonaut corps became space pioneers. Gagarin, Leonov, Titov, Gorbatko, Shonin, Bykovsky, Anikeev, Volynov, Nikolaev, Komarov, Popovich - they all visited space, but Nelyubov did not.

In the summer of 1960, after the group moved to Star City, practical preparations for the flight began. From the entire group, six people were selected, one of whom was to become the first person to go into space, and the others were to follow him. This group included Gagarin, Titov, Nelyubov, Bykovsky, Nikolaev and Popovich.

For six months, six astronauts prepared for the flight. Finally, in January 1961, they all successfully passed the exams and were enrolled as cosmonauts. Now it was necessary to distribute the roles and determine who would be first.

Experts are still arguing why Gagarin was chosen for the role of the first cosmonaut, because he and Titov showed approximately the same results, and Titov was even preferable, because there was a very high probability of an unsuccessful flight (just in case, mourning messages about the death were even prepared in advance the first cosmonaut), and Titov had no children, while Gagarin already had two daughters growing up. It is possible that Korolev chose Gagarin due to his charisma. In the event of a successful flight, the Soviet cosmonaut would turn into the most recognizable person on planet Earth and a kind of ambassador of the Soviet Union in the world, and from this point of view, the charming and smiling Gagarin, who aroused sympathy among everyone, was preferable to the focused Titov.

One way or another, two weeks before the first flight the choice was made. Gagarin becomes commander of the first cosmonaut corps. German Titov is appointed as Gagarin's understudy. He was supposed to fly into space if something happened to Gagarin on launch day. Grigory Nelyubov was appointed reserve cosmonaut. If Titov had felt bad, he would have been the one to fly into space. Thus, in the unique hierarchy of the detachment, he was considered cosmonaut No. 3 and even received the corresponding certificate. Since all three had a chance to fly into space on April 12 (although Gagarin, of course, had it higher than the others), they all pre-recorded a special address to the Soviet people and took a photo together on Red Square.

Grigory Nelyubov was born in 1934, according to some sources, in Crimea, according to others - in Zaporozhye. They were the same age as Gagarin - Titov was a year younger. Like Gagarin, Nelyubov served in naval aviation, while Titov served in air defense aviation. But if Gagarin served “in the middle of nowhere” - in the Murmansk region (as part of the Northern Fleet Air Force), then Nelyubov was a pilot of the 966th Air Regiment of the 127th Fighter Air Division of the Black Sea Fleet Air Force.

At the time of selection, Gagarin had two years of experience as a fighter pilot, and Nelyubov had almost three. Titov served in air defense units in the Leningrad region and also had two years of experience.

On April 12, 1961, the first manned flight into space took place. Nelyubov, as a reserve cosmonaut, was present at the cosmodrome together with Titov (however, he did not put on a spacesuit) and later, as Gagarin’s reserve, he was awarded the Order of the Red Star. While Gagarin was being celebrated, the training of cosmonaut No. 2, Titov, began. He had to spend 24 hours in orbit. In August 1961, Titov safely traveled into space and returned to Earth. Cosmonaut No. 3, Grigory Nelyubov, who began intensive preparations for the flight, was supposed to fly next, but circumstances intervened.

Cosmonaut No. 3 seemed to be haunted by some kind of evil fate. Every time he came close to flying, circumstances were such that he ended up staying on the ground. After Titov’s flight, Nelyubov spent several months preparing for his flight, since he had to set a record for a person staying in orbit and go into space for three days.

Correspondents came to Star City specifically to film the third Soviet cosmonaut and his wife, the materials of which were then planned to be shown in the press after the successful completion of his mission. But unexpectedly politics intervened, and the astronaut became an unwitting hostage.

After two successful launches, the Kremlin thought and decided: why are we launching one person at a time under the same program? This will no longer surprise the whole world. We need to come up with something new to continue to set the bar high. Let's launch several people into space at once - we'll arrange a group flight.

As a result, Nelyubov’s flight, planned for the end of 1961, was first postponed to the spring of 1962, and then canceled altogether. Instead, preparations began for the launch of two ships at once, which will simultaneously be in orbit and communicate with each other.

A group of seven cosmonauts was selected for this flight, which included Nelyubov. But the news of the flight's cancellation and the need to start all the preparations all over again apparently came as a huge blow to him. During the next centrifuge tests, Nelyubov did not show the best results and was temporarily removed from training for health reasons. Instead, Andriyan Nikolaev and Pavel Popovich went into space.

And after them, it was decided to send a woman into space for the first time. This was a propaganda calculation. In the early 60s, in Western countries, women still played a traditional role: they sat at home, cooked for their husbands, raised children - and then the Soviet Union sent a woman into space - a powerful move. A man was supposed to fly with Tereshkova, who was selected for the flight, on another ship. In the end, it turned out to be Bykovsky, and Nelyubov, due to a minor incident, said goodbye to his dream of the stars.

At the end of March 1963, two members of the detachment, Anikeev and Filatyev, were drinking in the station buffet on Chkalovskaya. Alcohol was not sold in Zvezdny, so you had to go to the station to get it. Nelyubov was on vacation at that time and stopped at the station for champagne. According to one version, he joined his comrades and drank beer with them, according to another, he simply did not have time to leave. Anikeev and Filatyev started an arm wrestling competition, during which, in the heat of the struggle, they dropped dishes from the table. The angry barmaid called a military patrol, who immediately came to the buffet.

The patrol tried to pick up Anikeev and Filatyev, but Nelyubov decided to defend them as the most sober. The conversation quickly turned to a raised tone, and all three were taken to the commandant’s office, where the wounded Nelyubov also said too much to the officer. He became angry and promised to send a report about the indecent behavior of the astronauts “up.”

The incident became known, but they tried to solve it on their own. The cosmonauts agreed that Nelyubov would apologize to the officer, and he would not proceed with the report. However, Nelyubov, as they say, “short-circuited” and he flatly refused to apologize: they say, they behaved rudely and defiantly, but should I apologize? For what? As a result, the report went to Moscow, and although many cosmonauts were against expelling all three, the leadership in Moscow was adamant: expel everyone.

The head of cosmonaut training, Nikolai Kamanin, a very tough and stern man, who served practically “from Ilyich to Ilyich” and became one of the first heroes of the USSR for saving the “Chelyuskinites,” recalled the situation with the expulsion of cosmonauts:

“German Titov also came in. I asked him how he felt about the case of Nelyubov, Anikeev and Filatyev. German replied that he was sorry for Nelyubov, that they had said a lot of unnecessary things about the guys. Then I told Titov that the fact of going into a diner and drinking was incompatible with the title of cosmonaut<…>This is not the first time Nelyubov, Anikeev and Filatiev have been spotted drinking. The last two are of no value as astronauts, and this case gives us the legal right to free ourselves from them. Nelyubov was one of the first "Gagarin" six and at one time was a candidate for the third or fourth flight, but then he showed not the best results in the centrifuge and faded into the background. In this incident, he was less to blame than others (he was in civilian clothes and tried to persuade his comrades to leave early). Vershinin, Rudenko, Rytov and Odintsov for the dismissal of all three as cosmonauts. Gagarin believes that only Filatiev should be fired, while Nelyubov and Anikeev should be severely punished, but left in the center. I am for the dismissal of Filatiev and Anikeev from the center and for an attempt to check Nelyubov one last time, who was quite recently one of the best cosmonauts of the first set<…>The Commander-in-Chief signed an order to expel Filatyev, Anikeev and Nelyubov from the cosmonauts and ordered me to go to the center and personally explain to all the officers that this issue was discussed at the Air Force Military Council, all of whose members were in favor of their dismissal<…>Valery (Bykovsky - Ed.) and Valya (Tereshkova - Ed.) asked me to reconsider the decision to expel Nelyubov, Anikeev and Filatyev from the detachment. On this issue, all six cosmonauts spoke with Vershinin (Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force - Ed.). The Commander-in-Chief conveyed their request to me and asked me to think about what we could do. I honestly and directly answered both the cosmonauts and the commander-in-chief: “If Nelyubov receives an excellent certification in a year, then I will not object to his return to the detachment, but for Filatyev and Anikeev the path to space is closed.”

After being expelled from the cosmonaut corps, Nelyubov was transferred to the Far East. Frankly speaking, Nelyubov ended up at the very ends of the earth, in the taiga wilderness - his place of service was the village of Kremovo, Mikhailovsky district, Primorsky Territory. Several houses in which the pilots and service personnel lived, an airfield and several tens of kilometers to the nearest city - the contrast with the former life of an astronaut and Kremlin receptions, of course, was incredible. Undoubtedly, this was a heavy blow for both Nelyubov himself and his wife.

Nevertheless, Nelyubov still hoped that he would be able to return. After all, before he was expelled, they reassured him that in a year he would be given a chance to rehabilitate himself. Some sources report that Nelyubov broke down and started drinking after his expulsion, but this is not so. Firstly, he simply would not have been allowed to fly if he had become interested in alcohol, and secondly, he managed to master the newest MiG-21 fighter in the shortest possible time, which was not at all easy to do after a three-year break from piloting.

He tried to transfer to test pilot, even passed the exam with excellent marks, but at the last moment he was refused - apparently, afraid of possible problems, keeping in mind the incident at Chkalovskaya.

So a year passed, then a second. Nelyubov's train was leaving quickly. In the cosmonaut corps, completely different people were being prepared for flights; with each passing month it was becoming more and more difficult to return. In addition, Kamanin was by no means eager to return the cosmonaut who had erred. The fact is that at the time of the first cosmonauts, their profession was not just a profession, albeit a prestigious one, it was a privilege, and a very serious one. The astronauts were allowed to be stars and outshine even party leaders. They joked at Kremlin receptions, traveled to foreign countries, met with top officials of states, they seemed to personify the ideal Soviet man and the advantages of the socialist system, which allowed humanity to break into space.

Of course, Gagarin and the first cosmonauts were allowed to do a lot of things for which a simple member of the cosmonaut corps could be seriously reprimanded, but Gagarin was already a living legend - he did more with his mere existence than all Soviet diplomats combined. But for those who had not yet flown into space, the demand was completely different; they were not going to forgive even minor sins.

Nelyubov had one last chance: to get a meeting with Korolev and ask him to return to the detachment. Korolev’s word then carried significant weight, and besides, Korolev himself had a good attitude towards Nelyubov and considered him one of the most talented in the detachment (that’s why he became cosmonaut No. 3). He managed to arrange a meeting, which was scheduled for February 1966.

But this meeting never took place. On January 14, the father of the Soviet space program died during surgery. Nelyubov’s last hope of flying to the stars collapsed. The cosmonaut had to say goodbye forever to thoughts of fame and honor, newspapers would not report about him, he would not be awarded in the Kremlin, he would not become famous throughout the USSR, he, a man who had only one step left to take before his dream, now had to spend the rest of his life in taiga garrison at the end of the world - and this after three years of continuous grueling training (the first cosmonauts were very stressed in tests, because they did not yet know how the human body would behave in space).

This finally broke Nelyubov. The last three weeks of his life he was severely depressed and began to drink. On February 18, 1966, he left home and never returned. Soon his body was discovered on the railway. Cosmonaut No. 3 was hit by a train. According to the general opinion of most researchers, Nelyubov committed suicide.

Cosmonaut No. 3 was the only one of the first six selected who had never been in space. He was one step away from becoming a living legend, but in the end he was forgotten for almost a quarter of a century. The Soviet space program was strictly classified, and only during perestroika, in the wake of the glasnost policy, information about the spare Yuri Gagarin became known.

The fact that a heroic profession is impossible without humor is demonstrated by the numerous oddities that happen in astronautics. The conquerors of the Universe are ordinary people, if you do not take into account their exceptional courage and altruism. And, accordingly, they love to joke. This is how the most fearless people on the planet had fun...

Cosmonaut Georgy Grechko was one of the first to drink cognac in orbit, and, moreover, someone else's cognac. “He floated out of the department with sports underwear,” Grechko recalled. - It said “Eleutherococcus K” (alcohol tincture of Eleutherococcus was officially approved). At first, out of simplicity, I began to ask what kind of “Eleutherococcus” this was. They told me with a smile: “Concentrated.” It turned out to be a gift from the understudies.

Georgy Grechko himself made similar presents. So, in the 1970s, he found himself abroad for the first time, in Bulgaria. It was there that I saw canned beer for the first time and decided to send it to the guys at the station. “We smuggled this beer into space a little bit,” said the astronaut. “True, they were never able to drink it: the drink splashed all over the ship.”

The crew members themselves were also not at a loss, they hid alcohol in the logbook, which turned out to be one of the convenient hidden places for cognac - with strong crusts, and even decorated with the coat of arms of the USSR. The astronauts tore out sheets of paper for notes, inserted a flat canister into the covers, sealed the end with paper, and drew with inspiration the edges of the pages with a pencil. At the entrance to the ship there was an officer who checked everything brought on board for compliance with the weight list, etc.

“They let our “flask for notes” through,” recalled Georgy Mikhailovich. - And only once the controller whispered: “Next time, pour the drink right up to the cork, otherwise the logbook will gurgle a lot.”

By the way, the crew never finished the cognac that appeared in the form of Eleutherococcus K tincture, which Georgy Grechko talked about. “Liquid and air in space weigh equally nothing, so they mix and foam forms there, which cannot be squeezed out. And no matter how hard we tried to get it out, we failed,” recalled Georgy Grechko. “We threw this flask.

And the next crew later told us that they finished it after all. We answer: yes, it’s impossible, we tried all the ways. But, as it turned out, other cosmonauts were more enterprising: they said that, in addition to higher education, one must have at least an average understanding. They say what they did was very simple: one climbed up to the ceiling of the station, and the other hit him on the head. The neck of a flask is in the mouth. And by inertia, the cognac goes into the mouth, because there is no weight in space, but there is inertia.”

Owen Garriott's most famous prank. This astronaut worked at the orbital station as part of the Skylab crew in 1973. Going on the flight, he took with him a voice recorder, on which he recorded several phrases of his wife at home, so that he could hear her voice in orbit.

One day, once again getting in touch with the Mission Control Center, he decided to play a prank on officer Robert Crippen. Owen brought the recorder to the transmitter and turned it on. As a result, the following dialogue took place between the station and the center:
- Skylab, this is Houston, can you hear me?
“Good afternoon, Houston,” answered a cheerful female voice. - Skylab is listening.

The officer on Earth was stunned. He decided to clarify:
- Who's at the transmitter?
— Bob, this is Helen, Owen's wife.
Bob was silent for a while, wondering what was going on, and then asked:
- What are you doing over there?
— I decided to cook the guys something to eat. Fresh, homemade,” Helen “reassured” him.
The earth was silent for about a minute, then turned off. Apparently, the officer’s nerves could not stand it.

One day, Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Valery Ryumin decided to amaze botanists around the world by demonstrating a cucumber grown in the Mir station greenhouse. The learned men were delighted: before this the plant had not even produced an ovary, but here there was a whole fruit. They asked me not to eat the cucumber.

They began to think about how to deliver it to Earth. The scientific community was in ecstasy until the astronauts admitted that the vegetable was brought from Earth and demonstrated the orange they had secretly taken into orbit.

Kovalenok was repairing a malfunctioning VCR on Salyut-6, having forgotten to take out a cassette with the cosmonauts’ favorite film, “White Sun of the Desert.” Having repaired it, I let it warm up and in the meantime went about my business.

About two minutes pass - and suddenly the thunderous voice of Comrade Sukhov echoes throughout the entire station: “Great, fathers!” Kovalenok exchanged glances with flight engineer Ivanchenkov. The first thought was: hallucinations began. Moreover, the phrase “We’ve been sitting here for a long time” followed, and the crew was in their hundredth day of flight...

According to tradition, upon returning from a flight, astronauts give their instructor something from things they have been in orbit. Often it is hours. But a couple of days before the end of the flight, Vladimir Lyakhov discovered that he had lost his watch and tried to find it every free minute.

He checked every panel of the interior upholstery, expecting to find something missing. In the end, there was only one single untested panel left. It was secured with fifty bolts. Lyakhov spent several hours to promote them all. When he opened the panel, he found a note inside: “There is no clock here. Kovalenok! By the way, Lyakhov never found his watch that time.

Klimuk and Sevastyanov flew on Salyut-4 at a time when there were no visiting expeditions yet. Only double. Klimuk sailed to the ship on business and closed the hatch behind him. Sevastyanov needed to consult with the commander; he swam to the hatch and knocked on it. Klimuk from behind the hatch: “Who’s there?”

The Salyut-6 crew, Popov and Ryumin, decided to play a prank on the Mission Control Center. In one of the communication sessions, when he appeared in front of the television cameras, he was asked to wait a second. On Earth they were perplexed: who else are they waiting for? And they were dumbfounded when... the third cosmonaut emerged from the depths of the station! Moreover, accompanied by Ryumin’s dissatisfied grumbling: “You’re always late”...

As it turned out, it was just a spacesuit inflated with air, in which astronauts take off and return to Earth.

During one of the long flights, April 1st arrived. The astronauts, busy with work, somehow forgot about him. But the MCC operator is not. He said on board: “We don’t like telemetry, ventilate the station.” - "How?" - “Open the window for ten minutes!”

The station finally realized about April Fools' Day and responded in kind. The next day, as luck would have it, the State Commission showed up at the MCC. They listen to the crew’s report - and at the phrase “...the station has been ventilated,” they literally “get stuck.” “What did you ventilate?” - “Station. According to the assignment." - "How???" - “They opened the window for ten minutes.”

The State Commission flatly refused to understand the “joke of humor,” so upon returning to Earth the crew was screwed.

Salyut-7 flight engineer Vladimir Solovyov was once in orbit... beaten. With fists. It happened like this: the cosmonaut of the visiting expedition, Igor Volk, woke up before everyone else. I decided to warm up. In the work compartment, among the bags hanging there, he noticed one that seemed softer to him, and began to use it as a punching bag. And this turned out to be the sleeping bag in which Soloviev slept like a righteous man...

The unofficial champion of space jokes is considered to be astronaut Owen Garriott, who managed to thoroughly prank the Mission Control Center in Houston twice during one flight at the Skylab station.

Can you imagine when, in the midst of a stream of boring technical data from the board, the lines suddenly appear: “Hell is in the middle of the Sun. We see the dead burning. We see hell! And then - as if nothing had happened.

Usually, Soviet television, informing about the next docking of a manned spacecraft with an orbital station, showed the following footage: the hatch of the docking station opens, and members of the visiting expedition float into the station, who are joyfully greeted by local centenarians. Smiles, laughter, hugs, a short briefing on board, greetings to those remaining on Earth... In reality, the operations after the ship docked with the station and checked the docking port for leaks took place according to the following scenario.

The main crew, with the hatch battened down, politely asked what the guests had arrived with. And when it was heard from the ship over the intercom that there was nothing, he was also politely advised to continue the flight in the same condition. In order for the hatch to be opened, a “pass” to the station was needed. And all visiting expeditions carried this pass with them.

After some bickering, the hatch was slightly opened, a bottle of cognac floated into the station, and only then the visiting expedition itself. The cognac went around, and the visiting expedition “registered” at the station. Television viewers, naturally, have never seen any of this.

An astronaut visited St. Petersburg Alexander Lazutkin. In February 1997, he went into space and spent 184 days 22 hours 7 minutes 40 seconds as a flight engineer on the Soyuz TM-25 spacecraft and the Mir orbital station. It was at this time that there was a fire at the station, a collision with a cargo ship and other troubles. The hero of Russia spoke about his non-standard flight and space sensations at a meeting with St. Petersburg residents.

About space

Once, as a child, at a dacha, I was allowed to climb onto the roof, and from above I saw the familiar world - neighbors’ houses, forest, fields and places I had never been before. It was an incredible delight. And so I climbed onto the roof much higher than that one. True, everything turned out a little differently than I expected. The first thought that arose when I looked out the window at the Earth was “Well, I knew it was round” with a feeling of regret. I think if I had seen turtles, elephants, a whale or the rope she was hanging from, I would have said everything is fine, that’s the way it should be.

The first days in zero gravity were difficult for Lazutkin. Photo: From personal archive/ from the archive of A. Lazutkin

It’s an unpleasant feeling when you can’t see where the Earth stands. I felt that there is a big difference between what we know and what we feel. I knew that the Earth was round, did not stand on anything, and floated in space. And then I saw her in the endless and boundless space. This made it scary, but also wonderful. In space you understand how much larger our world is, and the Earth is just a small point in it. And it is no different from others that we look at on a starry night. And there are many more stars in space than are visible from Earth. And that's impressive. There is a certainty that there are the same planets, the same worlds as ours, and we need to fly there. It's a pity, life is short.

About weightlessness

I thought weightlessness was bliss. However, I almost died in the first week. I unfastened from the chair an hour and a half after weightlessness had set in. And so I flew and thought - great. And suddenly I felt nausea rising inside. It developed with each turn, and after a day or two my head and back began to hurt. In weightlessness, the blood rushes to the head, and no matter how we turn over, it does not flow out. It feels like you’re standing on your head and your vertebrae are moving apart because gravity is not acting on them. On the fourth or fifth day I thought: if I had known that it would be so bad, I would never have become an astronaut. On the sixth, the prospect of spending six months at the station was no longer at all pleasing. On the seventh day, I realized that I would die at night. It was some kind of natural state; I didn’t want to resist and fight for my life.

Lazutkin was a flight engineer on the Soyuz TM-25 spacecraft. Photo: From personal archive/ from the archive of A. Lazutkin

On earth, during experiments in a pressure chamber, if things got bad, you could knock and everything would stop. In space, I knew that knocking was useless, no one would open. I've never felt so bad before. It seemed like I was definitely going to die at night. But the next day, I woke up, and I didn’t feel sick, my head and back didn’t hurt. And by the evening I was delighted, as if I had been born again. An indescribable feeling of happiness and joy. After that I was able to enjoy the feeling of weightlessness. And after a month it began to seem to me that walking was somehow even uncomfortable. Flying is much more enjoyable.

About the features of life in space

The day passed normally, as on Earth: you wake up, do exercises, take a shower, have breakfast, work. The only thing that was different was that you didn’t have to go to the store or to work. There was some discomfort in this. It seems like I want to go somewhere. Our food was no longer in tubes, but in bags. A very wide range: meat, fish, potatoes. 5-6 first courses and even more second courses. As a rule, freeze-dried, but tasty. There were also different types of canned food.

We didn't have to wash anything. All clothes are disposable. But, as it turns out, we drag all our habits into space. According to the instructions, socks, T-shirt, and shorts should be thrown away after two days. But all the cosmonauts, including foreigners, tried to wear them longer. For some reason, everyone felt sorry for throwing away clothes. Even at the end of the flight you don’t change lanes. And so it is for everyone. It’s the same with equipment: computers, fans, cameras were left somewhere, shoved somewhere. Although this is pointless, because you can’t take it with you to Earth.

When I was flying, our shower didn’t work and we had to use other methods. The simplest one is to pour water into a small reservoir and squeeze out a little at a time. You catch a drop, press it to your body, it does not push away, but sticks. And you rub it, wipe it with a towel and so on. This one took from 250 to 300 ml of water. I spent a glass somewhere. Nowadays astronauts use napkins.

About accidents

Before the flight, I asked the astronauts how many emergency situations should I expect? They said - in six months 3-4, maximum five. As soon as our ship entered orbit, one of its antennas did not fully open. It wasn’t scary, but I pinched one finger. It took two days to get to the station, during which time some unit failed. Finally, the station is visible. We get closer and closer and suddenly stop and begin to move away. The commander says: “Sanya, there’s an accident.” Thank God it was his second flight. He knew all the instructions by heart and calmly told me what to do. I do everything, but I’m in shock. What accident? What's happening? Two days have passed and there have already been three accidents.

The cosmonaut was awarded the title of Hero of Russia. Photo: From personal archive/ from the archive of A. Lazutkin

A week later there was a fire at the station. When we put everything out, the commander said that such a serious situation leads to two problems at once. And I thought, two weeks have passed, and there are already five accidents, and there is still another six months ahead. Cool. And then it began: the oxygen production system failed, the temperature control system broke down, the lights went out, the kitchen, toilet, and shower did not work. I don’t even know how much the collision was. Towards the end of the flight in the morning you wake up and think: “Probably something will happen again today. Well, okay".

Even when they were already flying towards Earth, a couple of failures occurred. We have already entered the dense layers of the atmosphere, the windows are smoked, nothing is visible. We jerked, the signal came on that the main parachute had opened. And I have a banner on that says the overload continues. Although it should have gone out. The commander and I agreed that the main parachute did not open. And we will wait for the spare one to open. Nothing even trembled in me anymore. Later it turned out that the banner had failed. Well, we landed with such a blow that I have never felt in my life, either before or since. It turned out that the soft landing engines did not work. I realized: this is the last point.

All the emergency situations that happened helped me get a feel for the station. Every time I fixed something, I felt it more strongly. I felt great after the collision, because I knew that we had even survived this and already know how to deal with it. Therefore, I am grateful to fate for everything that happened.

About knowledge about space

The fact that children do not know who astronauts are is not so bad. Recently an incident occurred in Moscow. Young people were preparing an exhibition about space topics. We arrived at some organization and asked for materials about Gagarin. They are asked, what exactly interests you about Yuri Alekseevich? And they: “Who is Yuri Alekseevich?”

We need to tell children about space and show good films. And then they will have a desire to become astronauts.

But seriously, I once performed at school. And before the conversation started, he also asked, who wants to go into space? Few hands went up. The guy was sitting next to me, I said, what don’t you want? And he says - it’s sick there. I told them what it was like in space and asked again if anyone had expressed a desire to fly into space? Most of the children raised their hands and even the boy who was afraid of nausea. He said he would be patient. We probably need to tell children about space and show good films. And then they will have a desire to become astronauts and go there.