Space will endure everything

How right Lem was when he suggested in his Solaris that there, in extraterrestrial space, a person will encounter the most terrible and unknown thing in the Universe - his reflection. The space that opens up to real cosmonauts is also a reflection, but, fortunately , not so scary. We can truly be proud of those who represent our civilization beyond its borders. Another question is, can we be proud of civilization?

Space is not outside the Earth. It’s in our heads. And in this sense, a lot has changed in fifty years. The cosmos agrees to any “provocation”. It is susceptible to ideological narrowing of meanings. It easily rises to individual pathos, and even more easily it is exchanged for mass appeal. He speaks the same language as physicists and lyricists, romantics and pragmatists. He can be anything. But I'm afraid we still don't know which one we need.

God be with him, with TV - that’s why it’s massive - but what do the conquerors of outer space themselves say? If you collect the most famous diaries and records of Russian cosmonauts, from the pioneer to the flight engineer of the current ISS, into one book, you will get a strange thing. Leafing through its pages, you suddenly realize that it is, of course, about space, but not about the one you expect to find there. This is a real book of times, perhaps never written so purely by any writer.

Terminator

In contrast to Sinyavsky’s famous statement about his stylistic disagreements with the authorities, one can say that the recordings of Russian cosmonauts are almost stylistic expressions, but, of course, not of the authorities - of the era.

The first cosmonaut was not short of optimism. He himself was both an experiment and a tool and a result. His cosmos was formulated by the era long before the flight itself. Perhaps the program was laid down at the moment when cosmonaut number one entered a vocational school. Or earlier, when I recited a poem about Lenin at school.

Galina Gagarina, youngest daughter of cosmonaut number one, associate professor at the University of Economics. Plekhanov, calls for those books about Gagarin that were written by him, such as “The Road to Space,” to be considered serious and truthful. Indeed, there is enough veracity in the records of the first cosmonaut. Only this specific truth is so simple. The author is transparent and pure, like a spring, and plays with all the colors of the landscape reflected in him:

“Dear friends, relatives and strangers, compatriots, people of all countries and continents! - I said. “In a few minutes, a mighty spaceship will take me to the distant expanses of the Universe. What can I tell you in these last minutes before the start? My whole life seems to me now to be one beautiful moment...”

Next comes a brilliant period, which, although it conveys the extraordinary emotional fullness of the picture, still makes the modern reader strongly doubt the seriousness and truthfulness of the author.

“I paused, collecting my thoughts. And my entire life flashed before my eyes. I saw myself as a barefoot boy helping shepherds tend the collective farm flock... A schoolboy who first wrote the word - Lenin... A craftsman who made his first flask... A student working on his diploma... A pilot guarding the state border...”

Page after page is entirely ideological folklore, which evokes the same grin with which we read today in an interview with another star about her naturally raised forms, university education or unhappy childhood. Here, for example, is a passage about the hero’s father, who, according to the law of the genre, is supposed to be like a felt boot - simple, home-grown:

“That day he (the father) went to do carpentry twelve kilometers from Gzhatsk, to the village where a collective farm teahouse was being built. While transporting him across the river, an old boatman he knew asked him:

- What rank does your son have?

“Senior lieutenants,” his father answered.

“It was reported on the radio that some Major Gagarin seemed to have flown to the moon,” the old man continued.

“Well, mine is still a long way from being a major,” said the father.

- Maybe some kind of relative? - the carrier asked again.

“You never know how many Gagarins there are in the world,” concluded the father.

That's where the conversation ended. The old men crossed the river, drank a chekushka to the one who flies, ate a battering ram, and the father, shouldering a carpenter’s tool, went his way, forgetting about the astronaut.”

“... on his way, forgetting about the astronaut,” - reading these lines, you force yourself to believe: the boy was there, he saw space. It is not surprising that there is still an opposition myth among the people, supported by the yellow media - both Russian and Western - about the monstrous falsification of Gagarin's flight. In any case, if there had not been a real flight, everything else, including the memories of the main character, would have been exactly the same, in the same style. As, by the way, are the celebrations in his honor 50 years later.

Gagarin was the ideal hero of the era. Too ideal. Perhaps Korolev and Kamanin went too far when choosing the First Cosmonaut - who knows, maybe a more passionate German Titov would have been less mythical. It will take decades to humanize the heroes of the cosmos, and with them the cosmos itself.

Humanly

For the first time, space spoke in human language thanks to the twice Hero of the USSR, pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR Valentin Lebedev. In 1982, during a flight on the Soyuz-T-5 - Salyut -7 - Progress space complex, the cosmonaut began keeping a diary, which was then published in separate chapters in the Pravda newspaper and the Science and Life magazine. The famous “space” journalist Vladimir Gubarev, who made a lot of efforts to ensure that the astronaut’s diaries were soon published, wrote that Lebedev humanized space.

Indeed, for the first time in Lebedev’s notes there are many everyday details described simply in a homely way; the constant cosmic sense of humor, the constant search for the right things, which float out from under one’s hands at just the right moment. It becomes completely clear what an astronaut’s day is like at the station, and what his work consists of. It is also clear that his days are routine, devoid of any romance. Irritation at the inertia (read: sovietism) of the leadership is recognizable and close, for which it is always difficult to abandon the outdated directive:

“It would seem that what is easier for the Earth is to remove part of the work or postpone the experiment some other day: do not put the crew in a position where they must either work in a hurry or ask for a reduction in the load. After all, the Control Center has the legislative right and the power to change the program, but it’s easier for them to entrust everything to the crew.”

And yet Lebedev is not yet a hero of our time. Truthfulness and sincerity - no, there is not a shadow of doubt in them - but it becomes uncomfortable for them. I just want to say: well, why are you doing this, Valentin Vitalievich... it’s unnecessary, so... smell it, you’ll catch a cold.

The notes of Valentin Lebedev are the notes of a person for whom working on himself is an unconditional internal need. In fact, the diary for him is a tool for self-improvement. This instrument is almost surgical - with such precision and mercilessness its owner gropes and opens microscopic mental sores. “It becomes scary not from the height to which he rose,” he writes on May 11, 1982, “not from the dangers that are possible in our profession, not from the difficulties of a long flight and a lot of work, but scared for himself - he’s able to lick with a friend for so long and work, you won’t fall apart.” whether." The day after tomorrow starts. Every glance, step, sigh, every thought is subject to internal consideration. This attitude towards work, life, the work of life is not only intended for a diary - this is the only possible state of this person. And this is a very bold position. He lives as if every minute all the people on the planet are looking at him at the same time. You need to be a very strong person to withstand such a burden of responsibility and - yes - not break down.

“Tolya (Lebedev’s partner), Zhenya (E. Kobzev, doctor) and I talked like men, and Tolya and I swore an oath in any situation to show sobriety, the desire to maintain good relations.” An oath given to a partner, an oath to oneself before the flight to be reasonable and a strong-willed person. It is difficult to imagine a person who would be as sincere in life and on paper. It’s as if the reader is not looking at documentary records, but Soviet prose for children and youth a la Elena Ilyina with her heroes, forever developing character, running away from themselves, ready for self-sacrifice. In the name of what and why - today it is impossible to make out.

Although no, why - there is, it just doesn’t sound very convincing in the modern context:

“Today we look out the window with Tolya and say: “For the sake of all this, you can prepare for as many years as you like on Earth, you won’t regret anything, to see and feel our Earth like this.”

Valentin Lebedev not only humanized extraterrestrial space. He breathed life into the ideal image of a person. His space is perhaps the most inaccessible.

Cosmosphere

It’s as if the cosmonauts of the 90s had noticeably decreased work at the station. The work may not have become less - the attitude has changed. Lebedev and his partner were exhausted, and Yuri Usachev’s expedition found time to push a water bubble into an improvised gate, flirt with astronaut Shannon, philosophize... In any case, the burden of responsibility noticeably lost weight. The space of Yuri Usachev is, without a doubt, a space of change. Earthy and very recognizable.

The changes are striking.

Relations with astronauts are built within the framework of the cultural myth “they are stupid,” which is not yet recognized as a myth. Intellectual Yuri Usachev, of course, does not say “stupid,” he calls astronaut Shannon “like most Americans, overly determined.” She has little, you see, “creative attitude to work.” We are still proud of our soldierly ingenuity and are already embarrassed by our poverty:

“Our official “gifts” were so wretched (pennants, badges) that we wanted to crawl under the table out of shame. The Americans gave us the book “Apollo 13,” signed by the commander of this expedition, Jim Lovell, and some other books for our children.”

An astronaut of the 90s is a person who suddenly realized: he doesn’t owe anyone anything. And to him - no one. His cosmos is extremely personal, which only he needs. He will never talk about duty and business. He will say that he is a happy person, but even this confession is written through humor - so that you won’t understand: isn’t it the other way around:

"I am a happy man! Many people invent difficulties for themselves and feel pleasure from overcoming them, but in our work there is no need to invent anything.”

There is “general chaos” on Earth:

“My daughter told me that in the Rabbit Breeding pavilion there are now not rabbits, but fur coats.”

Perhaps it is better to not express the essence of time in one line - here it is, a creative approach to business. Changes in everything – and they don’t always have enough humor. The astronauts are fulfilling a contract with Pepsi. They stamp symbols on baseball caps and T-shirts, assemble and “prepare for release” a mock-up of a soda can; They are filming material for a commercial about this, and at the same time completing a science assignment. On Easter, the Russian crew christmas themselves and eats cottage cheese with raisins and nuts. Father Pitirim gets in touch - well, what else is left when all the rabbits are either eaten or used for fur coats.

Peaceful

The advent of space tourists and the Internet have finally rid space of heroism. Iranian-American Anousheh Ansari, a space tourist and blogger, scored two goals at once.

She was the first to keep an online space diary during her stay on the ISS in September 2006. Letters to Earth from the most “ordinary person”, or rather, from the most ordinary billionaire – entries in the style of “Sex and the City”. They are, of course, about: world peace, nervous female gluttony, strong men and weak women; emotional, touching and – oh, yes! – all this happens in space:

“Michael (astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria) took off his glove and it started flying around the cabin. I couldn’t stop giggling... Finally, I managed to look out the window, and I saw the Earth for the first time... Tears flowed from my eyes. I couldn’t catch my breath... (...) How I wish that everyone could feel the same feeling in their hearts, especially those who manage countries and governments. Maybe this experience would allow them to see things in a new way and bring peace to the world.”

Amen!

Poppier, even poppier!

The posts of the first Russian cosmonaut-blogger Maxim Suraev, who from September 2009 to March 2010 was a member of the main ISS expedition, have a good domestic flavor. Maxim is your guy from the garage:

“I liked the redocking! It is great! Super - because the work is lively, peasant, like the exit. Since I am a pilot, it was also very pleasant for me to fly the ship.”

So space tourist Guy Laliberté turned out to be a normal guy after all! And the Russian cosmonaut RomanRomanenko, now a Hero of the Russian Federation, is simply “Romka”.

It’s easy and fun with Maxim. He, as one person put it in the comments, is “funny and cool” - such is his space. The cosmonaut's blog was read by those who would hardly ever get to the pre-diaries, for example, Lebedev and Usachev. And not because the latest books were published, but because the first one is more modern.

Modernity, again, is in the intonation. Even Suraev’s life in space looks updated. At least ice cream... Lebedev began to dream, and 28 years later, Suraev ate it - real, cold. (These astronauts received special rations from NASA; the Russian Mission Control Center, as in Korolev’s time, is too strict).

Reflections on character development, as well as sad self-irony, are not characteristic of him. When a smart girl Nastya from Novosibirsk asks him (in order to prepare a school essay) about the “test in space,” the cosmonaut simply replies that in space, Nastya, you need to show the best sides of human nature. Couldn't have said it better.

Maxim plays, frolics, draws comics, asks riddles. Either he will take a photograph of a certain area on Earth and ask where it is, or he will take an old pump of the thermal management system, put on glasses and write that this is the latest development of the defense industry, aimed at listening to the American segment, he jokes. He even grew wheat by smuggling. I planted seeds left over from one of my previous expeditions, and they sprouted. The Mission Control ordered them to be cut, Maximne obeyed and by the end of his time on the ISS grew excellent ears of corn.

It seems that everything is simple for him: a way out into outer space, for which readers jokingly suggested making a blockbuster (they even wrote and posted the script for this blockbuster on the Internet); and a meeting, which unfortunately did not take place, with space debris.

He, of course, does not have a word about great work, feat, human destiny, high duty. And in general, why high words? Maxim Suraev is a good, honest person. And timely. Such people are disgusted by pathos - this requires high meanings. There are no longer any high meanings in Suraev’s space. This is the job - cosmonauts have one job, polar explorers have another, Gazprom manager has another... job.

It’s a pity that those commentators who reproached Maxim for his superficial attitude to the task and pop-ness did not understand this. By the way, as Maxim himself admits, no one gave him the task of blogging - it was his personal initiative. Maxim wrote this:

“For those who are looking for seriousness, it’s better not to read my diary. Clear and strict information can be found in press releases on the same Roscosmos website where my blog is published.”

But most of the audience, of course, strongly supported their guy:

“Manned programs are almost of no interest to me - there is too much propaganda and stereotypes, but you and your blog are an exception... how Roscosmos came up with this is simply amazing.”

In general, the possibility of commentary, as a rapid response group, played an important role in the formation of the cosmos in the Suraev style. Probably, the cosmonaut himself did not imagine that, for example, this post of his would cause a multi-page storm of discussion:

“And in my cabin I keep a reliquary cross. My father gave it to me at Baikonur, before leaving. Father Job said that the reliquary contains a piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified.”

The comments boiled with indignation and, like a snake that bites its own tail, turned in on themselves, forgetting about space and the astronaut. True, among them there were “enterprising” people and asked

“On what conditions can miraculous holy relics of various Buddhist masters of the past be sent to the ISS. Of course, they will be sealed in a small box of 100 grams. The Buddhists of Kalmykia, Buryatia and Tuva would be very happy for the objects of their worship to revolve around the earth.” Why, actually, no - everyone has the right to their own space.

Maxim betrays himself only once – when he answers Boris Gryzlov’s questions. In answering these questions, the astronaut becomes unrecognizable; it feels like he wrote them while standing, with an awareness of the extreme importance of the process. But, on the other hand, another thing is also unclear: why did the Chairman of the State Duma suddenly decide to use such an unofficial resource as a blog for official nonsense? Moreover, his questions were not much different from the questions of the smart girl Nastya and her teachers - Suraev wrote a lot about these topics in his blog. It was probably a dialogue between two press services, like a special mating dance among some species of animals.

Alas, these are also signs of the times.

It is difficult to add anything to the space of Maxim Suraev. The following astronauts who volunteered to keep an Internet watch did not contribute anything of their own.

Thus, Fyodor Yurchikhin dedicated his notes to children, answering their questions and examining their drawings. In general, it’s been like this with space for a long time - children’s language is most familiar to him.

Nowadays Dmitry Kondratiev runs a blog from the ISS. However, Dmitry himself writes and films little. His style is to answer questions from journalists and press services. Posts on the Roscosmos website appear regularly. They contain a description of working days as they are: from start to finish. Clear, concise, formal. Nothing personal.

Well, it doesn’t matter that there is no impersonal space. Empty and dark.