To view other photos of the trip,use the Moscow buttons above or this link: Moscow Photos

In January 1998 I went with a group of engineers from NASA to the Zvezda facility in Moscow to observe a special vacuum chamber test of a Mir space suit which had been returned from the Mir on one of the Shuttles. The Mir space suits are normally put into the trash after their useful life is over and they burn up on reentry of the trash container. This one was to be refurbished for use in a joint US and Russian space suit test at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston to verify that the Space Station Airlock equipment could support either of the suits or both suits together.

MOSCOW JOURNAL Thursday 1-15-98
Take off from the NASA hanger at Ellington airbase at about 10:00 a.m. (CST) - about 40 aboard and one cat. A little mini-van hauled us to the plane in groups of six in the order in which we had signed in. We each had a row of seats to ourselves. Flew just at cloud top level (low, 100% cloud coverage) a beautiful white world below us. Served ham & cheese sandwich with an oatmeal cookie & cheese. The green melon was not ripe.

There were several worktables aboard the plane. The trip planners had brought a TV and a VCR. It took 20 minutes to reach Dulles airport in Washington, D.C. It was overcast all the way. I reset my watch to Moscow time because Ann told me I should. 9:00 p.m. in Moscow. It was 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 Celsius) in Washington. Raul hope we get to leave the plane at each stop. The sunshade over the window got extremely hot (100-115 deg. F) from the sunshine coming through the window.

Most of the people aboard went in vans to a lounge at the airport. The plane has a stairway and an exit in the tail. Two men in camouflage came aboard and checked up and down the aisle. I think that was supposed to be a customs or safety check. The weather was cold and drizzly

We took off at 10:45 Moscow time (2:45 local, 1:45 p.m. CST) in drizzling rain. We were above the drizzle within three minutes. 11:45 a nice nap. Still overcast. We had chicken chunks in mushroom sauce, corn & rice pilaf, and broccoli. Very good pineapple. Most are drinking.

Friday 1/16/98
3:03 a.m. (Moscow time?) Bad weather at Gander, Newfoundland forced us to continue to Goose Bay/Happy Valley, Labrador. There was a strong wind blowing snow across the airport. All of us made a trip to the terminal. It was not a long walk. The pilots had called ahead for an 'emergency' delivery of pizza so we weren't likely to starve. (They had planned to pick up food at Gander.)

3:45 Rolling out at Goose Bay. 7:00 Ghostly gray cloud tops lit by the moon.

Rolling out at Reykjavik, Iceland, at 8:37 a.m. Moscow time (5:37 a.m. local). A new crew is aboard. Several of the passengers are sleeping now. Everything is quiet. There was a lot of noisy card playing on the previous leg of the journey. It's almost midnight back in Houston. Fourteen hours travel so far. The streets around the airport seem to be well lit. There is a lot of water.

10:00 a.m. (Moscow time) A stewardess said that she and the new crew had flown to Iceland by commercial flight Tuesday. They had 40 hours to tour the area before we got there on their charter plane. The hotel where they stayed let them borrow a van. They saw frozen waterfalls, geysers, and Icelandic ponies. The sun was up from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. local time.

10:02 There is a hint of red on the horizon ahead and to the right of the plane. 10:17 Looks like ocean oil drilling rigs below us. We have dropped in altitude. The moon is behind and to the right of us. The sky is bright ahead. Sunup at 10:50 and breakfast at 11:50 was sizzler sausages, egg omelets, and spicy hash brown fried potatoes.

1:10 p.m. Moscow - It was overcast with light snow flurries when we landed at one of the older airports. The airport is smaller than the old city airport in Houston. Got onto a bus, which made a big U-turn and let us out at the entrance. We climbed some stairs, then walked through several halls, picked up customs declaration forms and our baggage. We walked through several more halls and up more stairs. A young fellow basically just waved us through his checkpoint and out into the airport lobby. Our visas and passports were checked and stamped on the way in. We waited in the lobby with a crowd of local people who were waiting to meet friends or relative. A pretty young girl with a big baby came by begging for milk money. (We had been warned not to give to beggars because it might cause a disturbance, but when we returned on our trip home, I did. That will come later.)

We rode a bus to the hotel. There were lots of interesting buildings and billboards along the way. The hotels is very modern, but with European touches. Joey took us to a small grocery store in a mini-mall type place. It was self-serve. They had modern price scanners. They stocked U. S. peanut butter.

Saturday 1/17/98
Got up about 6:00 and read some. Went to the lobby on my floor to sit in the easy chairs. Craig and Todd were heading to Red Square. We went to the main lobby and found Raul just before 11:00. He and Joey had planned to go to the 'CD' park. [A flea market specializing in 'boot-legged' CDs of all types had been set up in one of the city parks.] Found Jim Warnix and Bob Hill. They were going to the park with the big 'flea market' along with Jerry Goodman. We couldn't find Joey, so Raul joined me to go to the flea market with the others. The flea market was a pretty long subway ride away. We had to walk about a half mile to and from the subway stops. A 35-cent token allowed entry into the subway and then one could go anywhere. Another token was required to get back into the subway. The escalators were very steep. Ladies in booths at the foot of the escalators yelled over the loudspeaker system to keep order on the escalators. Those standing on the steps were required to stay on one side to all others to walk up or down. We got back at 3:30. [I'll describe the flea market events somewhere. The photo pages are listed in the index.] I took a nap.

Met Raul for supper; he had arranged for Mary Ann and Victoria to take us to the Starlight Grill. Just a short ride on the subway and then a short walk. The snow had been cleared from most of the streets and sidewalks. The Starlight Grill had American food at reasonable prices. $5 for a malt and $11 for two pieces of meatloaf with 'smashed' potatoes, but no bread was provided. We got back at 9:00. Joey and his friends talked the others into going to the Sports Bar or the Hungry Duck. Mary Ann took Raul along to insure that they would be back at a reasonable time. [Raul is in his mid-20s and was one of our newest employees, so he was excited about getting out to see the sights. If he hadn't insisted on taking me, I might have stayed in the hotel the whole time. He has a strict, traditional Christian faith.]

Sunday 1/18/98
We had no idea where there might be a Christian gathering so we just toured the city. We took the subway to Red Square at about 9:00. We took some pictures in the square then left the square along the streets opposite St. Basil's.
A woman in black suddenly appeared as we stood staring at that end of the Kremlin. She asked $5 per hour for each of us for a three-hour tour of the Kremlin and the Armory. She got us tickets for the Ascension Church and the Armory. [I don't remember whether that was included with the tour fee or not; probably not.] She explained the church buildings within the Kremlin (fortress) and how they related to the individual czars and their families. She explained the icons in the church and all the beautiful things in the armory; gold and jeweled work framing icon pictures; gold and silver utensils; old priests' robes; coronation gown; carriages; and amazing old rifles and pistols. We gave her 150,000 'old' rubles ($25 U.S.) which is what she said we owed her. [She spoke almost constantly for three hours in fluent English. However, if we asked questions about things other than what she was describing, she had a little trouble answering. She wanted to stay with her routine so that we would see it all in three hours. She occasionally asked if we understood her.

After leaving the Kremlin, we went into a beautiful, modern, multi-level mall. A moat is being built around the mall. It didn't have water in it, but I think it was going to be filled from the Moscow River. Bronze statues of characters from Puskin's stories were in the moat: the Firebird, a bear slapping a fish out of the water, and things like that. [See the Moscow pictures pages for a photo of the dome over the indoor fountain.] We bought little meat-filled rolls, coffee, and hot chocolate at a small restaurant. This was their style of fast food. The girls at the counter couldn't speak English, but they did know to give us English menus. After we left the new mall we went back through Red Square to St. Basil's, but we didn't tour the interior. Then we went to Gum - a galleria type mall, very old and fascinating.

It was very cold and snowing and by the time we got back to the hotel at 3:00 or 4:00, snow had re-covered the areas that had been cleared by scrapping or melting from the warm weather the previous day. Cold, blowing wet snow had made part of the Kremlin tour pretty bad, but it was a little warmer after the tour and was really not bad at all. [When we made that final walk through Red Square, several hat salesmen appeared and I bought a fake fur hat for $10. The tour guide suddenly appeared and told us that we didn't have to buy something from everyone who approached us and told us where we could be genuine mink hats. The Russian men are tough and don't use the earflaps on their hats, but not I!]

CURRENCY EXCHANGE
We were told that we shouldn't try to use U.S. money because the Russian people were not allowed to have it and plain-clothes police might confiscate it. A bank office was located just off the hotel lobby where we could exchange currency at the official rate. The rate of exchange varied from 5960 rubles (old) to the dollar to 5990 rubles to the dollar just before we left. Most of the notes were the old rubles. 1000 old rubles equaled one new ruble. The bank provided receipts for each transaction. Sometimes the receipts were preprinted with the Russian equivalent of John Doe or Bob Smith. When they didn't have a preprinted receipt in the amount I wanted, they typed my name in English letters. Here are the Russian names from three of the certificates transliterated from the Russian Cyrillic alphabet: Mikhail Aleksandrovich Kuznetsov, Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov, and Eduard Aleksandrovich Issolov. A fellow named Kuznets used to work in our division. I think his family had shortened it from Kuznetsov.

An exchange rate of approximately 6000 to 1 made transactions a little difficult at first. A $20.00 rabbit fur cap would be 120,000 rubles.   A 500 ruble note was worth less than $.10. There were no ruble coins in circulation since 1 ruble was only worth 1/6000 of a dollar. However, a set of coins could be purchased for about $4.00. Most prices seemed reasonable to me. A fellow at the open air market did a charcoal sketch of me and asked for an amount I calculated to be $50 for it. It didn't even look like me, although it was a nicely done picture. I think I paid $20 for it, but I don't know for sure; it was the first purchase I made at the market.

On the last day there I used U.S. dollars at the market to purchase this crystal (glass) egg for $20. The young vendor said that he really should be paid in dollars anyway because he had to pay for his supplies in dollars. I also gave $5.00 each to two young women begging at the airport as we arrived there on our return trip. I'll tell of that when I finish the journal.

THE WEEK AT ZVEZDA (STAR)
Monday 1/19/98
We left the hotel at 8:30 in a little Japanese van. Alexander the interpreter was with us. The roads were mostly clear of snow in town, but some roads further out had some snow. The heaviest flow of traffic was coming into town. There were three lanes each way with no divider or median. Several times people from the oncoming lanes drove on the outbound inner lane and our driver moved further to the right to miss them. However, the travel wasn't too bad considering the weather. Mr. Abramov appeared soon after we arrived. He had not expected us so soon. Gennady came in a little later, then Evegeny. (A 'test leader' and a 'test director'? were there too. I learned the names of all of them later.) Someone came and explained that lunch would be $7.00, not $5.00. We stopped our meeting about 12:30 and moved out of the room so that the lunch could be set out in the meeting room because the regular dining hall was being remodeled. Ladies brought crab and corn kernel salad, cheese slices, bread, and carbonated water. We thought that that was going to be the meal and were eating second helpings of the delicious crab salad when they brought fish soup -joking that that was all they had in the kitchen. The soup consisted of thin potato slices, carrot slices, fish slices, and spices. The main course was baked fish with mashed potatoes and English peas. Finally we had tea or coffee and cookies.

We started back to the hotel at about 4:45 and arrived by 6:00. The maid had not taken the $2.50 in rubles bills although she had taken the $2.00 U.S. the previous day.

Tuesday 1/20/98
We had about the same schedule on Tuesday. We discussed the test procedure then toured their museum. The system they used for their first EVA was a surprise to me. (They used an INFLATABLE airlock! See the Moscow Photos pages.) All of the displays were interesting. They produce a great variety of products. We went back to the meeting room for lunch. They served us cabbage slaw with a vinegar type dressing; then borsht (potato soup flavored with beets?); then crapes with ground meat filling; and finally tea, coffee, and cookies again. After lunch we toured their vacuum chamber facility.

It didn't snow much that day, so the streets were clearer when we drove back. Some blue sky and the sun were visible at noon, but there was a heavy overcast by 4:00. Traffic was like that on Loop 610 near the Galleria in Houston; lots of pedestrians crossing and autos trying to make left turns.

Raul and I were going to go to McDonald's that evening, but when I got to the lobby, I found that the girls had asked him to go with them, Joey, and Edgar to the Starlight Grill again, so we went with them. We traveled through two subway stops, then crossed over the subway tracks and went on one more stop. We turned left after leaving that station and walked about half a block. The Grill was in a park on the left. We had to wait about 30 minutes to get a booth. I had a cheeseburger with fries and a coke. We left the Mira station by a different exit on our return trip.

I watched part of a Russian film on TV. The scene 'cuts' were a little rough. In the close-up view the actors were standing near each other, but in the long shot, they were several feet apart.

Wednesday 1/21/98
It was Baptismal Day commemorating the day that all of Moscow (or some region around there) were forced to be baptized into the Eastern Orthodox Christian religion. I don't think it was a work holiday, but I don't have any notes for a Wednesday trip to Zvezda.

That night several of us went to Red Square. A group of Communist Party members were parading out of the Square as we started in. We went on to Gorky Park, but couldn't see much a night and weren't too sure about the advisability of hanging around there. We also saw the new statue in the Moscow River. I've forgotten now, but I think it commemorated Peter the Great. The statue was all out of proportion; there was an oversize statue of Peter the Great (?) on the deck of a ship which was riding over some waves with small ship statues in the waves. I think that many of the citizens were unhappy with the way the statue turned out.

Two college-age women were playing classical violin music in the subway station and a little girl with a sign hanging around her neck walked silently through each car on the subway train. At another time we saw an older woman holding a Siamese cat that was wrapped up like a baby with only its face showing.

Thursday 1/22/98
I worked on the test schedule. Joey and Abramov worked on the "protocol." Lunch was delayed until 3:00 and then to 4:00 so that all the Zvezda personnel could be there. They served pickled herring, which was not to my taste and some pickled (salted) cucumber soup, which was good. (I think we asked for the crab salad again. They usually gave us choices for the next day's menu.) I was unsure about the toasts since I don't 'drink', but to be diplomatic, I tried a sip of wine, but it wasn't too good. It might have been great wine for all I know. Then I found out that I could substitute water and they didn't care. Raul gave the best toast; he referred to us older engineers and complimented all the work we had done separately, then toasted to the much greater work all of us could accomplish together. Alexander, the interpreter was a pretty sharp guy and of course Dr. Abramov was. For example, when asked how they were sure that the 'negative pressure' relief valve had not actuated during the chamber repressurization, he immediately pointed out that there would have been an increase in nitrogen in the suit. They explained that Gennady, who was the test subject, had used the Oxygen Injector to maintain a positive suit pressure even though the test procedure did not call for its use. But they went to great lengths to assure us that he only did as directed during tests although as a suit systems designer and as an experienced test subject, he knew all the required operations by memory. (Our policy was to have the test director approve and record any change to the procedure before any action was taken, unless it was of an emergency nature.) . . . . . . . COUNTER SET 3/5/01