The last citizen of the USSR, who was forgotten in space.
It sounds like the title of a science fiction novel adapted by Steven Spielberg.
In fact, this is the true story of Russian astronaut Sergey Krikalyov.
He is in space when the Soviet Union is collapsing.
While tanks roll through Moscow's Red Square, people and soldiers build barricades and fortifications,
and Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviet Union will remain just a page of history, Sergei Krikalyov is in Space.
At this point, he cannot return to Earth. He was simply refused to be sent back.
The Mir space station, whose position is 350 km from planet Earth, becomes his temporary home.
It was then that he received the nickname "the last citizen of the USSR."
But this was not the worst that could have happened to the astronaut.
The Soviet Union disintegrates into 15 separate countries in 1991,
and he is informed that he cannot return home because the country that promised to take him home no longer exists.
This is how he got another nickname - "The lost in space", writes rbth.com.
CONSCIOUSNESS
What led to this happening?
At that time, Krikalyov was a 33-year-old flight engineer.
He already had behind him a successful mission to the Mir station in 1988.
Thus, in May 1991, he set off for the second time to the Mir space station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome,
which is located on the territory of Kazakhstan.
According to the plan, Krikalyov's activities at the station should last five months, and he is not prepared for a longer stay.
Suddenly, however, while he was on board the space station, a coup occurred in his homeland.
Krikalyov remembers that this was an absolute surprise and shock for him.
He himself admits that at first, he did not understand what was happening at all.
He then began to wonder how these events would affect the space industry and his program in particular.
The Mir orbital station is the first long-term habitable station and the first of the "second generation space stations".
It is a intricate, multi-purpose scientific research complex.
In a sense, the astronaut becomes a hostage of the station.
If something had happened to him, there would be no one to maintain it and it would have been lost forever.
What followed was another blow to Krikalyov's spirit.
He is informed that there is currently no money for him to be returned to Earth.
After a month he gets the same message again.
From Earth, they try to calm him down by assuring him that he needs to stay
a little longer in Space and that a solution will be found very soon.
Another month passes, but the news does not change.
Krikalyov recalls: "I thought how this was very difficult for me.
This was definitely not good for my health.
However, I understood that the country is in a very difficult situation and now the main priority is saving money."
The wait
"I wondered if I had the strength to survive to finish the program.
I admit that at that point in many cases I wasn't sure."
Being in outer space, especially in the early 90s, is accompanied by many risks,
such as muscle atrophy, radiation, risk of cancer, weakening of the immune system,
and these are just some of the possible consequences of a long stay in space.
Krikalyov himself is prepared for a mission lasting 5 months.
Instead, he spent 311 days, or 10 months, unwittingly setting a world record.
Four missions were planned during this period, but they were subsequently reduced to two,
and none of them had room for an additional flight engineer.
Russia, at this time, is facing very serious problems due to hyperinflation
and has to sell the seats of the Soyuz rocket to the space station to other countries.
Austria, for example, buys a seat for $7 million, while Japan pays $12 million to send a TV reporter.
Another reason why the hero of this video became lost! At the same time,
he is the most important person at the station because he maintains its functions.
To return to Earth, he must be replaced by another flight engineer who is familiar with the design of the station.
However, the situation on Earth is becoming increasingly complicated,
and there is talk of the urgent sale of Mir while it is still operational.
The other crew members return to Earth, but Krikalyov, as the only flight engineer, cannot.
Now he is forced to stay until the fate of the station is decided.
Stranded in Space, far from home, he asks for honey to be sent to lift his spirits.
Instead of honey, however, they send him lemons and horseradish.
The return
Return seems increasingly impossible for Krikalyov until he receives good news from Earth.
Germany paid $24 million for a ticket for his replacement, Klaus-Dietrich Flade.
On March 25, 1992, what had already seemed impossible became a reality.
Krikalyov finally returns to Earth.
After the landing of the Soyuz capsule, a man emerges from it with the inscription USSR and a red flag on his space suit.
Those who saw with their own eyes how the astronaut came out described him as follows:
"pale as a white canvas and sweaty as a ball of wet dough."
By the time of his return, the whole world already knows about this "hostage of the Cosmos."
He is immobilized and emaciated to such an extent that 4 people have to help him and hold him while he stands up.
During these 311 days in space, the world for Krikalyov has radically changed.
The city of Arkalik, on the outskirts of which it lands, is no longer Soviet but is part of the independent republic of Kazakhstan.
The city where he lived is no longer called Leningrad, but St. Petersburg.
His monthly salary of 600 rubles, which at the time of his flight to space was a very good remuneration for a scientist,
has totally depreciated. Now a bus driver was paid twice as much.
While in space, the astronaut makes 5,000 laps around the Earth.
Krikalyov was awarded the title "Hero of Russia", and two years later he embarked on another space mission,
this time becoming the first Russian cosmonaut to fly on a NASA shuttle.
A few years later, he was part of the first crew to arrive at the new International Space Station.
Towards the end of the 1990s the orbital station "Mir" began to have numerous problems with various instruments and systems.
The Russian government decides to deorbit and ditch the station, citing high maintenance costs.
On March 23, 2001, having exceeded three times its design life,
the Mir station was brought down in the South Pacific in close proximity to the Fiji Islands.
In total, 104 cosmonauts from 12 different countries worked on the station.
Krikalyov's fighting and strong spirit were the best tools he had in space which led to the happy ending of this story.
His success is also due to a great deal of luck.
A stroke of luck that many astronauts have unfortunately not had. They call Krikolov - "The Lost Astronaut",
but in the end after 311 days he returns back to earth.
However, this is not the case with other colleagues of his.
One of the most common stories is that of the lost Russian cosmonauts.
That's 13 people for whom the theory says were sacrificed by the Russians before Gagarin's flight.
Allegedly, in an attempt to win the space race with the US,
the Soviet authorities sacrificed 13 cosmonauts and then erased all traces of their existence.
Capsules burned up in the Earth's atmosphere, broke upon landing,
or were lost forever in the abyss of space before Yuri Gagarin's historic flight.
All of this was part of the bitter rivalry between the two powers during the Cold War.
THE CORDILIA BROTHERS
Two radio amateur brothers, Achille and Giovanni Giudica-Cordilia,
claim to have made audio recordings that support the conspiracy theory that the Soviet space program covered up
the deaths of cosmonauts in the 1960s and kept this information in the deepest secrecy and to this day.
The day was May 19, 1961, when the Giudica-Cordilia brothers' Torre Bert radio station located in northern Italy
intercepted a transmission from a female voice.
They don't understand the language and don't know what the woman is saying,
but she sounds confused and very scared.
Later, when they find someone to translate from Russian, they realize that "her ship is beginning to break up."
The woman is heard talking about the "rising temperature inside the ship" before it is destroyed in a re-entry attempt.
The two brothers claim they began following Soviet space program broadcasts of missions that were not
in the public domain, and that there were others who did not return alive.
They also picked up a morse code SOS signal from a spacecraft that appeared to be moving away from Earth's orbit.
Giovanni says that the signal was moving very, very fast, and the ship was moving away from the earth at great speed.
They find that instead of returning to Earth, the ship is drifting away into space due to a control problem.
These claims of theirs have not been confirmed to this day, and the recordings themselves remain unrecognized.
Let us know what you think about the topic.
Are some facts about the spacewalks that various governments are doing being hidden from us or are we seeing the full picture?
Since mankind first took to the skies in a rocket, we have lost 18 people in space.
Yet that number seems very low given our history and the fact that we launched humans into space in the beginning,
without knowing what would happen.
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