Stuck in space - Sjekk video om sovjetborgeren som ble russer i rommet - Popular Mechanics

 

The Lonely Cosmonaut

When Sergei Krikalev was stranded in space, he didn’t just lose 803 days aboard the now-deorbited Mir space station—he lost his country. After launching into space on May 18, 1991, the Soviet cosmonaut expected a five-month stint of maintaining machines and experiments, and working hard to keep his body in shape for his return to Earth.

What Krikalev got instead was the fall of the Soviet Union.

Understandably, around the time of the dissolution of the USSR, the space program was in a bit of political chaos. Usually, astronauts are replaced on space stations according to a predictable and known schedule. But the person originally scheduled to replace Krikalev on the Mir was himself replaced in the lineup by a much more inexperienced astronaut.

The new replacement wasn’t ready to fly just yet, so Krikalev was stuck for a little while longer. He did have a chance to fly home at least once during his extended stay, but that would have meant leaving the station entirely unoccupied, which can be incredibly dangerous and could have caused the program to lose the Mir entirely.

Sjekk den her: https://tinyurl.com/54tt3nh8