Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin toured the Star City.
Photo: Edward CHESNOKOV
— Did the cosmonaut Leonov fly in this space suit?
– Not on this, but the fundamental design is the same… He told me that when he went out into outer space, the space suit bulged up – and he could barely get into the ship…
I record this dialogue of the Duma deputies in the corridors of Star City. The representatives of the people have not been adolescents for a long time, but today they have become children. After all, probably every child once dreamed of being an astronaut. Or at least he admired science fiction movies and novels. Therefore, the external meeting of the State Duma Council at the Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow on August 28, 2023 turned out to be especially warm.
And the “earthly” agenda has not disappeared anywhere. In the corridor of Star City, the deputies came across two Belarusian cosmonauts: precisely at that moment they were undergoing special training on weight and size models of our Soyuz. That is, the State of the Union of Russia and Belarus has such a stellar dimension.
The meeting was chaired by Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin. It was in his small homeland, in the Saratov region, that the first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, landed. The memory of the astronaut was honored before the meeting: Volodin, the first cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova and other deputies laid flowers at the monument to Gagarin next to the Star City buildings.
Viacheslav Volodin personally evaluated the training facilities for future cosmonauts.
Photo: Edward CHESNOKOV
The next excursion through the territory of the Training Center turned out to be interesting even for the most experienced experts of the relevant committees. For example, the deputies were told that the resource of such a suit is about 12 spacewalks and that it can be stored in the Russian sector of the International Space Station for five years.
“Our earth is a huge spaceship that runs … if only to find out where,” one of the meeting participants, the permanent head of the Communist Party faction Gennady Zyuganov, commented philosophically.
– I think everyone will support it: when we discuss the budget for 2024 and beyond, we definitely need to define support for the Cosmonaut Training Center in a separate line! Volodin suggested.
And added:
— The development of the country and its economy is inextricably linked to the exploration of outer space. Therefore, we need to create the conditions for the space industry!
The representatives of the five Duma parties, who often argue on other issues, answered unanimously: space is our property, and Star City must be developed. After all, unique local simulators, such as the famous centrifuge, which simulates overloads of up to 10 or more “g”, are one of the brightest pages of the Soviet era. And all this, both Soviet cosmonautics and the current Star City, should not be considered an insult to anyone.
