Star City: 'Berkeley' for AstronautsIn the world of human spaceflight, one side of the planet bows to Houston, the training ground for American astronauts.
But where East meets West, it's all about Star City.
Star City -- a moniker for the Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center about 30 miles (50 kilometers) outside of Moscow -- emerged in the 1960s as part of the Soviet Air Force. Today, the only two people currently in space, and the only ones planning to stay there for the next four or five months, are graduates of this institution.
"I want you to know," said Jean-Pierre Haignare of the European Space Agency's Astronauts Office, "that when we foreign astronauts say that we graduated from the Cosmonauts Training Center, people think of our education as if it were received at the Polytechnic School in Moscow, or at Berkeley University (in California)."
At an official ceremony for Cosmonautics Day in the Assembly Hall of the Center. Sitting from left to right: Jean-Pierre Haignare, chief of ESA's Astronauts Team; Col.-Gen. Pyotr Klimuk, chief of the Cosmonauts' Training Center ; Lt.-Gen. Vladimir Shatalov, Klimuk's predecessor; Col.-Gen. Mikhail Odintsov, a former chief of the Center, Lt.-Gen. Valery Grin, a Space Forces deputy commander in chief of Strategic Rocket Forces.
"In other words, we got the best training in the world. For this reason we are happy that future cosmonauts/astronauts will be trained for their International Space Station missions in Star City."
Happy Cosmonautics Day
Haignare made his comments earlier this month at a ceremony celebrating the 40th anniversary of Star City. The ceremony also was dedicated to the 39th anniversary of the first piloted spaceflight made by a Soviet cosmonaut -- Yuri Gagarin.
In a sacred Star City ceremony, Officers of the City carry flowers to the monument of Yuri Gagarin.
This anniversary, also known as Cosmonautics Day in Russia, usually is celebrated on April 12th (the day when Gagarin flew in space).
Star City was designed to prepare men for spaceflight. Initially, it was run by 90 military and 99 civilian employees, said Air Force Col.-Gen. Pyotr Klimuk, the center's director.
"The first Cosmonauts Detachment consisted of just 20 pilots," Klimuk said. "Two of them reported for training on March 7, 1960. This date became the official birthday of the Cosmonauts Detachment [which became a prototype of the Center]."
"The Cosmonauts Unit today consists of four organizations and has 45 cosmonauts," said Klimuk. "Over the last 40 years the center [has] prepared almost 320 crews: 250 Soviet/Russian crews and 64 international crews."
Using housing as a measure, Star City also has grown enormously.
"In 1960, the whole housing of Star City consisted of two five-story buildings," said Klimuk. "Today, 10,000 people working in Star City have all the necessary living comforts."
On April 4, Sergei Zaletin became the 92nd cosmonaut to fly in space as a Soyuz rocket carried him to the Mir space station. The center, run under the Ministry of Defense and the Russian space agency, was named for Gagarin in 1968 after his death in a training crash.
An international approach
The first foreigner to fly in a Soviet spacecraft was Vladimir Remek, a Czechoslovak Air Force colonel who made his flight in 1978. Remek also became the first person who was neither Russian nor American to visit space.
A total of 32 non-Russians from 18 countries have flown in Russian spacecraft/space stations, Klimuk said. "Overall, the Center [has] trained more than 60 foreign cosmonauts," he said.
Star City's experience with training astronauts from all over the world makes it invaluable to the International Space Station efforts, said Yuri Semenov, president of RKK Energia -- the company that operates Mir.
"This is why we own about 30 percent of the stations potential while financially we cover only about 3 percent of its cost," Semenov said.
At a reception after the official ceremony, Maj.-Gen. Alexei Leonov (in the general's uniform at center) speaks with RKK Energia President Yuri Semenov. The man at far right is veteran cosmonaut Vitaly Sevastyanov.
"People in the world keep their respect for us because we managed to preserve the most scientifically advanced area of human activity during years of economic destruction and disintegration in our country," he said.
"We did it for the sake of Russia. We defended the operation of the Mir space station. We have all [the] reasons to say that we will continue flying Mir until the International Space Station becomes fully operative."
Rising Star City
The training center recently was granted the status of a scientific-research institute. Nearly 100 scholars perform scientific research at Star City.
Boris Volynov, a legendary Russian cosmonaut who started his training with Gagarin, made two spaceflights and has maintained his active cosmonauts status for 30 years, said the center's evolution has its pros and cons.
"The most important achievement is that we learned how to prepare a man or a woman for a spaceflight," he said. "We got rid of many unnecessary courses which were offered to us at the dawn of human space exploration."
"Speaking figuratively, we have sifted all our experience through a sieve and left only the most necessary grains of knowledge in the areas of flight training, scientific research and scientific-testing activities, repair work in space etc."
On the down side, he said, Russian experience is devalued.
"We give up almost for free our precious experience which we accumulated over the last 40 years," said Volynov.
Economic hardship
While Klimuk expressed his "full confidence in the future of the center", it has been affected by Russias economic hardships.
"The difficulties which the center is coming across are caused by the same factor as the difficulties of the whole country the lack of financing," said veteran-cosmonaut Gennady Strekalov.
"Still, it is nice to see that although Russian television makes heroes of killers, businessmen and top-models, people maintain their interest to the profession of a cosmonaut."
Alexander Serebrov, another veteran-cosmonaut, agreed that economics matter.
"Before all cosmonauts in training used to stay in a nice dispensary," he said. "Now, the whole second floor and part of the third floor in a three-story building are occupied by foreigners. Cosmonauts have to stay in the hotel which often lacks the quietness necessary for their good rest."
Serebrov believes, however, that the center's financial difficulties could actually contribute to the increase of its effectiveness as a training organization.
"Look, for many years, Star City has been an elite branch of the Soviet/Russian Air Force," said Serebrov. "As such, it was a real feeding-rack full of benefits for a number of military who were serving there. To keep this feeding-rack they had to justify their service to the center."
"For this reason, quite a few of them became instructors and came up with different tests which only they were authorized to give to cosmonauts," he said, "but which were absolutely unnecessary for future space flyers."
A spiritual blessing
The Russian Orthodox Church, which is playing an increasing role in the life of the Russian society, also sent its blessing to Star City during the April 7 festivities.
According to Mother Ksenya, piloted space exploration in Russia has deep spiritual roots.
"While praying, we address Saint Sergei," said Mother Ksenya, a prioress at the Saint-Trinity Novo-Golutvinski Monastery, "and in the prayer we call him a sky citizen and an earthly angel. Peoples imagination in the 14th century placed the Russian saint in the sky."
Current plans include building a church in the training center's territory.
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