At the Zvezda Plant outside Moscow
I’m starting with this photo because it represents an unexpected completion of a circle in life. The display in the photograph relates to special event in the race to space and the race to space goes back a little farther for me. Two years before this event, in the fall of 1958, I was beginning my senior year in high school. I choose as my senior paper theme the sad state of affairs in the U.S. space program as compared to the U.S.S.R.’s. All the space firsts of that time were of great interest and the Russians seemed to be making most of them. The 1961 World Book Annual Supplement for the events of 1960 says about this event: “The first living beings to return from orbit were brought back by the Soviet Union on August 20. Russia orbited Sputnik V, a five-ton space ‘cabin’ on August 19. In the cabin, separated by a glass partition, rode two female space dogs, along with rats, mice, fungi, flies, and plant seeds. The animals were lofted to determine the physiological effects of the space ride.” Now 40 years later I am standing in front of a display of the capsule that contained the dogs and their life support system. I think I even recognized the dogs in the picture! Strelka is the white dog with colored ears and the little black vest. Belka is the solid white dog. (Their names are printed in Russian on the label at the bottom of the picture. Notice that the poster illustrating crew escape systems is in English.) The dogs pictured above the frame are descendants of the space dogs. There were a bunch of those small dogs running around on the grounds of Zvezda. I looked at the picture in the encyclopedia to be sure of my facts and found that a black dog with a white facial stripe was in the picture with Strelka, but the caption referred to Belka. (The dog with the white stripe in this photo is not the one in the encyclopedia photo.) I don’t know how that mistake came about; I assume this photo is correct. Thanks to Raul Blanco for taking this picture. He is in the next photo and it completes another circle. It is connected to my experience as a test subject in the mid 60’s.
Dogs Survive Exposure to Vacuum
I will also mention here the experiment with dogs at vacuum. The experiments were performed by the U.S. in the early ‘60’s. There was a 100% survival rate for dogs exposed to vacuum for about 30 seconds. The survival rate dropped to 50% for those exposed to vacuum for 2 minutes. (None survived the autopsies!) I had heard about the experiments for years and then finally saw a printed report from the JSC technical library. Only microfiche copies remained the last time I checked. At another time and place I will tell how one of our test subjects suffered a brief exposure to near vacuum and survived. Arthur C. Clarke is supposed to have checked this out before he wrote the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey of an unprotected astronaut transferring through vacuum into an airlock and then performing an emergency repressurization before losing consciousness.
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First EVA
A Russian Cosmonaut performed the first orbital EVA. That is, he was the first to go outside an orbiting spacecraft. I don’t have the dates and cosmonaut’s name at hand; I may add it later or make it available by email for those interested. Not much information was available back then; even when I was the test subject for our own planned EVA in '65. Now here at Zvezda is a mockup of the spacecraft and the inflatable airlock that was added just to do that first EVA. The airlock was made like an air mattress rolled into a cylinder. It was attached folded on the spacecraft hatch. For use, the ribs in the wall were inflated to spacecraft pressure so that it took the cylindrical shape, then the inside was inflated. With both volumes (the spacecraft and the airlock) at the same pressure, the hatch between them could be opened and the cosmonaut could inter the airlock. That hatch was then closed and the air in the cylinder volume was vented to space. The outer hatch could then be opened to allow exit to the outside. It apparently was difficult for the cosmonaut to reenter the airlock because it was too floppy. The airlock was jettisoned prior to reentry of the spacecraft. I was really surprised to find out how they had done the EVA. We didn’t use airlocks on spacecraft until Skylab. Without an airlock, the entire spacecraft has to be vented to vacuum pressure and all crew members have to be in pressure suits.
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I think this is the suit normally used on the Soyuz. This display of Zvezda's products is in a basement that looks like it was once a secure vault or bomb shelter.
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This is the Mir EVA suit; the type that was the subject of the test we had come to see.
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Gennady was the chief test subject for Zvezda and he was also their expert suit engineer. He was usually at their mission control center when Cosmonauts on the Mir did EVA's. He could read and speak English very well. (Most of their engineers could.) He had earlier been a test subject using the Shuttle EMU (space suit) in our Shuttle Airlock facility.
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This is the refurbised Mir space suit supported in the chamber and connected to facility equipment in readiness for the test.
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Their vacuum chamber (vac-camera) did not have an airlock. Instead, the chamber was repressurized to normal pressure in the event of an emergency and the end of the chamber was pulled away on a trolley. The rescue team could then enter and remove the test subject to safety quickly.
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Their control "room" consisted of an array of equipment consoles adjacent to the chamber. Some of their CRT data displays were more advanced that what we were using at the time, but they still used analog meters that we stopped using in the early 1960's. Their medical officer and medical team were mostly women.
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This is the room we met in each day. We were also served lunch here. These photos were taken after the successful demonstration that the space suit returned from Mir and refurbished by Zvezda could operate at vacuum conditions.
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Since this was the final day, lunch was served later in the day and wine and vodka were provided for the obligatory toasts. Even I sipped some of the wine for the toasts.
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The youngest member of our team gave the best toast. He commented on the 'old hands' referring to me and the older Russians and the successes we had had working
separately
over the past 40 years and toasted to an even greater future success as we work
together
on the International Space Station. Our joint suit test later back in the U.S. in 1999 was a complete success. More about it later on another page.
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