cosmonaut--once the dream job of a lifetime for
millions in this country--is increasingly less attractive because it is no
longer the ticket to international fame or a fortune. As a result, the pool of
qualified candidates for positions in Russia's cosmonaut corps is shrinking,
experts said.
"In the 1960s one would dream of becoming a
cosmonaut, now the young men are dreaming of becoming bankers," said Sergei Shamsutdinov, an editor at
the Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine, which is published "under the aegis" of the
Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) and Space Forces. "The romantic aspect of the
manned space exploration is no longer there; it has been replaced by gray daily
routine," Shamsutdinov told Space News in a recent telephone interview.
More importantly, Shamsutdinov said,
the current members of the Russian cosmonaut corps are far lower in the social
hierarchy than they used to be in Soviet times.
Today their salaries are dwarfed by the
hefty paychecks available to those working in the private sector. As a result,
Shamsutdinov said, fewer students of the top Russian colleges such as the Moscow Bauman
State Technical University, Moscow Aviation University and Moscow Engineering
Physics Institute--the schools that traditionally educated future cosmonauts--are interested in joining the next generation of Russian
cosmonauts.
"These
universities offer very good, fundamental education, which is in demand among
employers in the private sector," he said.
Russia currently has a total of 37 cosmonauts in three
separate cosmonaut units managed by Rocket Space Corp. Energia of Korolev, the Institute
for Medical Biological Research in Moscow and the Russian Air Force.
Energia has 15 cosmonauts, while the Institute has two. The Air Force, which also manages
the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, has 17, according to Shamsutdinov. In addition, Yuri Shargin is with the Russian Space Forces, Sergei Moshchenko
works at the Khrunichev State Research and
Production Space Center, and Sergei Zhukov is director general of Roskosmos'
Center for Technology Transfer, according to Shamsutdinov.
While Air Force pilots still display
strong interest in joining the Russian military's Cosmonaut Unit because it
leads to an increase in pay, qualified civilians are not as
interested, given the opportunities in the private sector, Shamsutdinov said.
Russian
cosmonauts are paid a monthly wage of less than
$767 (20,448 Russian rubles) a month and also receive bonuses for flights.
Since the latest campaign to enroll
new members into Energia's cosmonaut unit began in 2005, the organization's
managers have had little success convincing employees to apply, Shamsutdinov
said.
Facing lack
of interest in manned exploration from its own employees, Energia has launched a program that allows
students to apply for membership in its cosmonaut corps even before graduation.
A delegation led by Alexander Alexandrov, chief of the flight service at
Energia, has toured several Moscow universities to try to attract students, but only students at the
Moscow Engineering Physics Institute displayed interest, according to
Shamsutdinov.
Some 20
students volunteered in early 2006, but only five ended up undergoing medical
tests at the Institute for Medical Biological Research. None of them passed the
tests, Shamsutdinov said.
Nevertheless
Energia did manage to tap one young talent. Nikolai Tikhonov, a 24-year old
graduate of the Moscow Aviation Institute and currently an Energia employee,
passed all medical tests and was cleared by a government commission in October
to begin training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center along with Elena Serova
[image].
Serova, 30,
is also an employee of Energia and would become the first female added to Russia's cosmonaut's corps since
2004, according to Shamsutdinov.
In an
interview with the Russian edition of Newsweek in October, Pavel Vinogradov, commander of Energia's cosmonaut
unit, acknowledged the drop in interest. "I cannot say there is no
one at all, but it is very different from the times when we had thousands
standing in line," Vinogradov told the magazine.
Vinogradov's
deputy and renowned Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri also acknowledged that fewer young men and women are interested
in applying to become cosmonauts.
"Of course, we are no match for
bankers," Kaleri, who is deputy commander of Energia's cosmonaut unit, said in
an Oct. 27 interview with Space News. Kaleri also blamed the Russian media
"for throwing stones at the manned space exploration, speculating that there is
no longer as much need for it as there used to be."
In spite of
the lessened interest, Russia currently has "more than enough" cosmonauts to
meet the current requirement of three cosmonauts per year for the Russian segment
of the International Space Station. Should the requirement grow to six persons for the space station a year as originally planned, the current
personnel strength of the Russian cosmonaut corps still would be sufficient, Kaleri said, but with
only a few in reserve.
On the positive side those who are
already in the cosmonaut corps are now more likely to fly to space, given the
diminishing competition, Shamsutdinov said. While some of the Soviet-era
cosmonauts would retire without ever flying to space, the current members of the
corps have to wait an average of 10 to 15 years until they log their first
flight, according to Shamsutdinov.
And Kaleri expects the interest in
the job of cosmonauts to pick up if Energia ever gets around to implementing
its ambitious plans to send manned missions to other planets. "Interplanetary flights will definitely
rekindle the interest," he said.
For now,
however, students of Moscow's best technical schools snub manned exploration of
space.
"I dream to
get a good job with a high salary and I don't think there are too many students
left who would be romantic enough to abandon material gains for cosmonautics,"
David Tarkhanyan, a second year student at the Bauman
University, told Space News in an Oct. 30 phone interview.
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