Weekly magazine “Arguments and Facts” No. 38. Family… or three I’s. The “cell of society”: a support or a burden? 22/09/2021
We live in the era of all kinds of shows, music, television, digital. it is now an integral part of life, permeating our consciousness, and therefore invincible, like the covid pandemic.
Writer, journalist, laureate of the USSR State Prize Vladimir Gubarev
The heroes and organizers of the show are now not only singers and musicians, artists and producers, but also officials of all stripes and ranks. This is a testament to the cosmonautics, where the madness of soap operas is moving now.
Money tends to the stars
Astronauts and cosmonauts on the ISS apparently have so much free time that they are ready to spend a few days in the company of guests from Earth, whose curiosity they will have to satisfy. These are just those days when the head swells, the pain is almost unbearable, and vomiting (all from the influence of weightlessness!) they are so dangerous for others that they areit can be compared with a meteorite hitting a station. But the organizers of space travel prefer not to mention these “details” of a person’s stay outside the Earth, since money does not like negative emotions. Another thing is – the delight of flying and another mention of own wealth. You can’t live without advertising now…
Billionaire Richard Branson flew into space on July 11, 2021, in September, an American billionaire Jared Isaacman accompanied by three lucky people (he paid for their flight), the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa went to the ISSI have already paid for my trip around the moon, and other rich people (includingElon Musk) we are ready to organize an expedition to Mars. However, they themselves are not going to participate in it, since there are too few guarantees to go back, and it is impossible to leave their billions unattended.
In general, the show about space tourism is growing. From the dangerous and difficult work of an astronaut in the popular consciousness is transformed into a kind of easy walk around the Earth. On the road to space, not scientists, not astronauts and astronauts, but the owners of thick wallets begin to walk.
However, we are different!
Our billionaires are tight-fisted people, they do not throw money around, and therefore tourist flights to space are organized at the state expense. I think no one has any illusions: shooting fragments of a future movie is nothing more than an entertainment show organized by Channel One and Roscosmos. Unfortunately, there is no place for Big Science in it, for the sake of which the exploration of outer space began.
But when did we turn into a dead end?
Waiting in line for a flight
There were many people who wanted to fly to space and work there. Very much. Doctors, geologists, geophysicists, astronomers, mechanics, ballistics, designers and even journalists proved that they needed to be there. Many of them felt that their dream was close to realization, as they underwent the hardest training and received a diploma& laquo;An astronaut-researcher». They stood in the queue for the flight (and where in the USSR were there no queues?!), waited for their start and, without waiting, retired. The fate of some is full of “Shakespearean passions”. I knew many of them well, was friends with some of them, and prepared five of them for the start. It was the “cosmonautics of hopes”. Unfortunately, unfulfilled.
The first cosmonaut squad was born in March 1960, when 12 pilots were enrolled in the positions of cosmonaut trainees.
From this seed, the Cosmonaut Training Center grew.& nbsp;
The founding fathers of the Russian cosmonautics, first of all M. V. Keldysh and S. P. Korolev we hoped that the center would train cosmonauts of various specialties, and not only military ones. But the department destroyed these hopes. Many barriers have appeared for civilian specialists. And & nbsp; space Assistant to the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force N. P. & nbsp; Kamanin & nbsp;–«the father of the astronauts» & ndash; was categorically against civilians. But he was forced to give in to the onslaught of Korolev, who ensured that his employees flew.
Several cosmonaut detachments were formed in the Soviet Union. The president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, M. V. Keldysh, did not give up trying to create a special detachment of cosmonaut scientists. In 1966, 19 candidates were selected from different institutes. Scientists were preparing for flights both to near-Earth orbits and under the Moon flyby program. However, no one ever managed to pronounce the cherished Gagarin’s “Let’s go” at the launch of the ship!».
In February 1965, the idea came up to try to get artificial gravity with the help of the rotation of two ships connected by a cable. In the experiment, except for B. Volynova the understudy K. had to take part. Feoktistova Doctor of Technical Sciences G. Katys. By the way, he started preparing a special “scientific flight” on Korolyov’s assignment. However, the program on “Sunrise” ships was closed after the death of the Queen
In the detachment of cosmonauts-doctors, the situation was a little better. In total, 15 specialists were enrolled in it. Three of them managed to visit space.
Korolev is an alien!
He is one of the aliens, I am convinced of it!
Is it an alien, or what? & nbsp; & ndash; I couldn’t help but smile.
“You’re being ironic for nothing,” he snapped. & ndash; I have all the evidence!
If I hadn’t known Professor, Doctor of Technical Sciences, cosmonaut, academician of a number of domestic and foreign academies, a major scientist Georgy Petrovich Katys, for a long time, I would have taken him for a madman.
& ndash; And & nbsp;what are the main ones of them?
& ndash; His amazing sense of space, unstoppability in the implementation of his plans, the most accurate calculations and forecasts. He knew too much and had done so much in a very short time that an ordinary person could not do such a thing. Only people who are ahead of time, who have come to us from the future, are capable of this. That is, aliens.
& ndash; Or geniuses?
& ndash; Then there were several of them in it.
If Korolev had not died, would cosmonautics have developed differently in our country?
& ndash; Absolutely! I have no doubt that the squad of the Academy of Sciences, which I headed, would have taken the main place, and this would have given a completely different face to our cosmonautics.
& ndash; Why did it happen otherwise?
There are many reasons for this & hellip; Some of them are rooted in the past, in particular, in the 1930s.
What do you mean by that?
& ndash; The shooting of my father. He was arrested under the same article as Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. But much earlier, when there was no GULAG yet, and therefore the convicts were simply put against the wall. Although my father was an excellent specialist, he graduated from two universities, knew seven foreign languages & hellip;
& ndash;And why was he arrested?
& ndash; For education. The ignorant rose up, and their hatred fell on those who knew a lot. The fate of my father was split with those people who became “gods” in the 1930s, and this ruined him.& nbsp;
& nbsp; Who do you mean by & nbsp;?
& ndash; The same Papanina and his entourage. By the way, among them was Kamanin, one of the first Heroes of the Soviet Union. We met with him already at the time when he was leading the cosmonaut squad.
If Korolev was sympathetic to those who were re-pressed in the 1930s, because he himself went through the Stalinist camps, then Kamanin despised these people and even after 30 years considered them enemies. In the end, he managed to prevent me from being approved as part of the main crew. Flew Konstantin Feoktistov.
Couldn’t resist
Formally, the first journalist in space can be considered Vitaly Sevastyanov. However, he did not transmit a single line from space for the newspaper, although after the flight he was justified, he became the host of the TV program ” Man.” Earth. The universe. He asked me to use the title of my book, and I gave the go-ahead. The next attempt to become a space reporter was made by Vladislav Volkov. He flew into orbit with the “Komsomolskaya Pravda” certificate. During the flight, he kept a detailed diary, hoping to publish a book. Unfortunately, that crew was killed. We published Volkov’s diary, and then a book about this flight was published
It would seem that the end has been put at the start of the journalist’s space. And in the United States, they decided to launch only professionals: after the death of the Challenger, there was even a law passed in Congress. However, soon the Japanese offered to send their correspondent into orbit and pay generously for it. The economic crisis was already growing in our country. Gorbachev’s perestroika has reached a dead end, there are no exitsfrom which was not. And then the figures of millions of dollars flashed on the horizon, and our officials from space could not resist any more. The attempt to earn more money with the help of commercial launches, as expected, gradually led to the degradation of cosmonautics. We began to lose not only to the USA and Europe, but also to China, India and even Japan.
And & nbsp; instead of the epilogue
Now the actress and the director of the future film, which should become sensational, are going to space. This is what the heads of Roscosmos and the TV channel say. The space show continues & hellip;
But for some reason it seems to me that our great scientists and designers did not start the Space Age of Mankind for him.
