Conversation with an astronaut: on health, weightlessness and space mutants

The first part of the conversation with cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, about health on Earth and orbit, weight control, sports, medical experiments, weightlessness, overloads, station smells, comic mutants and mustaches.

Photo borrowed in the blog aviator-ru .

The result of our unexpected meeting with cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov. The interview was prepared on issues of LiveJournal users, Geektimes publications and Vkontakte social network.
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In November 2014, I was invited to talk about rovers and moon rovers at the RoboSib festival in Irkutsk. Here is a good report about the event from Leonid Kaganov . By a lucky chance, Pavel Vladimirovich Vinogradov was among the invited guests. I invited him to conduct an interview with questions from the Internet. He happily agreed. I pestered him almost the entire flight Irkutsk-Moscow, as a result, a lot of material accumulated and it took a lot of time to process. I decided to split all the questions and answers into several parts. Conventionally, it will be: “Medicine”, “Psychology”, “Technique”, “Roskosmos”. All of them are closely intertwined and extremely interesting, such details are often not found anywhere else.

Communication with cosmonauts and space technology designers always reminds me that space is much harder and harder than we imagine, than drawing books or movies. And such conversations are a way for a moment to look into the complex and unknown world, where a person takes only the first steps achieved by incredible efforts at the limit of possibilities.

On account of Pavel Vladimirovich, three expeditions into space: one on the “Mir” in 1997, and two on the ISS in 2006 and 2013. In the open space, the astronaut worked more than 38 hours, in 7 outputs, including participating in the aftermath of the collision of the Progress spacecraft with the Mir station in 1997.

Before joining the cosmonaut corps, in NPO Energia, Pavel was involved in automated systems and crew interaction with them, and participated in the Buran project.

The accumulated experience and knowledge of 34 years of work of Pavel Vinogradov in the space industry are invaluable for the younger generation of space enthusiasts and all who decide to link their lives with the conquest of the Universe.

Today is the first part:

The medicine

Pro health and weight control

One of the most popular questions is health. You are the only astronaut who met his sixtieth anniversary in space, and now you are also ready to fly. How do you manage to keep physical form? Even blood pressure is asked ...

One hundred and twenty to eighty. I don’t manage it at all - thanks to papa and mom.

That is, you do not have any secret diets or vitamin complexes? ..

Never dealt with diets or vitamin complexes. The only thing that probably helped a lot was a part-time job as a tester at the Institute for Biomedical Problems. This is simply a fantastic invaluable experience, developing the habit of feeling yourself, feeling your body, knowing your limits, knowing your capabilities. We walked on the beyond, for normal people, modes ... Of course, there is physical training, exercise: in the morning, just bend down, eighty-fold, sit down ... I've never been a sports fan, I don't like running like a horse twenty kilometers away. I run for fun, 2-3 sometimes 4 kilometers, at an easy pace. For me, this is more emotional detente than physical education.
For weight you have to follow. Here, after the last flight, I had to lose a little ...

So you got a lot there?

Before the flight, I had already gone a bit more comfortable feeling. My usual weight of 77-78 kg for my height and body size is normal, before the flight was 82, after the flight I gained 84-85. It already felt a certain discomfort. I set myself a goal ... No special diets, no exceptions, I eat calmly everything that creeps and moves. Just a little reduced diet. I returned to physical loads, normal for me - medium and light. And returned to normal for me 77 kg.

Some astronauts note the difference in tastes on Earth and in orbit. It was so? What did you like at home and at the station?

Approximately half of those who fly, say that tastes change. Not even tastes, but preferences. But I was lucky, I am an omnivorous person that I liked on Earth, even in flight. Although there is something causing special pleasure. Cottage cheese with nuts is probably the most favorite food of all astronauts of all crews. Fish products are now good to do. In general, the range of food at the station is now gigantic - under five hundred items. There are plenty to choose from. Moreover, the station is international and each country is trying to bring something different. Our rations are different. The Russian menu changes periodically, but basically these are some fundamental dishes, almost always with meat, very high-calorie, with three thousand calories. Americans have a lot of very good things, they have different cereals ... In general, we have wonderful rations, buckwheat, pearl barley, mashed potatoes with onions ... but in the end it gets boring, boring. I want something simple, earthly, boiled potatoes with herring and butter. Somewhere in the month of the flight you start to remember.

About vitamins and mind

Is any complex of drugs taken to increase concentration, mental tone?

There is a whole range of drugs associated, mainly with vitamins and the maintenance of normal calcium metabolism, for cardiac work, a la panangin. I do not say that it is specifically Panangin, but it is of this class. There are all sorts of vitamins, B, D ... Because, despite the radiation level, vitamin D is simply not produced, it simply has nowhere to be produced there. And preventive measures are taken, there their whole complex, doctors, medical services all the time remind “guys, today we are starting such a cycle - five to seven days”. Well, crazy, in my opinion nothing was taken.



About weightlessness and overload

Tell us about weightlessness and the sensation of space. When do you understand that you are in space?

You won't miss this moment. First, 520 seconds of launch, then the third-stage pushers - the pyro-means - work so that you feel a heavy kick-blow to the back. You just won't miss it. The weightlessness appears abruptly: bang, the engines are turned off, the third stage is undocked and everything has flown.
How to explain weightlessness? If we do not talk about parabolic flights in training aircraft, the closest similarity is a parachute jump. And then the first few seconds before the parachute opens. And there is a little different - the air flow, the wind, the load ...

And scuba diving?

There to a lesser extent. Gravity is still felt. The water simulates the ability to roll over as you please. But if in the “Orlan” [spacesuit] you were turned upside down in the hydro-basin, it looks like weightlessness, and the spacesuit is completely unbalanced - it does not float or sink, but you understand that you are upside down. There, the state is different - it is called hydro-weightlessness - there are practiced the skills of orientation in space, you can spin as you please. The most realistic effect is flying in a parabola.

How did the body react to weightlessness? How long did the adaptation take?

All in different ways, but I was very lucky. I was told before the first launch: in no case look out the porthole of the ship. It is now we will quickly fly, and before we went into the spin of the ship - the batteries were oriented towards the sun. The mode was called so: spin on the sun. They flew in such a way that the batteries were always turned on the sunny side. The rotation is quite intense - 12 degrees per second and the Coriolis force makes itself felt. This lasted for several hours, 3-4 times per flight. Now we are flying without a twist, simpler, easier, but the perception of weightlessness is purely individual, although they load us all in the same way with training. Now - Coriolis chair, before there was a Hill swing ... In general, there are many devices that will turn you inside out. There are beginners who initially could not stand two minutes of rotation on the Coriolis chair, but a minimum of 10 is necessary. “Passing score” for beginners is 10-15 minutes. Before the flight, we spin 25-30-40 minutes. Doctors say “Until you get bored”, but in fact until the chair ceases to have any effect at all. Someone helps, some not, because in flight other vestibular disorders.



Those. in flight problems with a twist on the sun, and not actually with weightlessness?

No, vestibular disorders are not only due to a twist. Particular problems arise when moving from a small ship volume to a large station volume. It is already very bad there, because there is no feeling of top and bottom. The floor and ceiling are conditionally divided by color, but this does not help much.

How much adaptation did you have? When did you realize that you feel confident at the station?

Probably still a few days. Since, in addition to the vestibular sensations, there is also a redistribution of the so-called. hemodynamics. Redistribution of blood in the body. Even visible swelling of the face, swelling of the neck, because the blood rushes to the head. Our upper body on Earth is not subject to such effects, and here it causes some discomfort - nasal congestion, swelling of the face ... But it takes 3-4-5 days. We also have the means of prevention that we wear the first week - medicine recommends. Special costumes that do not allow the muscles to relax. Load suit “Penguin”, it looks like a normal flight overalls, but it has a lot of rubber bands. They force the muscles of the back, hips, legs, arms, and shoulder girdle to work. The whole body is covered. Such a suit is recommended to be worn at the beginning of the flight, but someone prefers to wear the entire flight - this is recommended. I wore him in the first flight very little, because It was very hot, but also on other flights not too long.

Is there a dependence on the feeling of weightlessness? Is there a desire to repeat it again?

If someone tolerates it easily - of course there is, of course. It's like once climbed a mountain, and you are pulled into these mountains a hundred more times. As once jumped with a parachute, and I want to jump and jump. Or dived under the water and you want to dive and dive (laughs). Of course, pulls. I remember in a month, in five or seven days, eight, when all sorts of back pains pass a little. You think "I would still fly."

They tell about this habit, when an astronaut can put a cup on the air.

Yes, I had it, when I first returned from the flight, I asked my wife for a glass of water, drank and let go of the glass, without any backward thoughts. And in flight the same way, earthly habits. I wrote something with a pen, put a pen on the table. Just looked around - it is no longer there. It is everywhere and everywhere.

How did the overloads endure?

Overloads are fairly quietly transferred - this is a trained thing - we fly on airplanes, we spin in a centrifuge according to the launch-descent schedule.

Is the body ready?

There are regular overloads - these are 4.5-4.6 units. There are modes, they are also regular, but we try to avoid them - on an uncontrolled ballistic descent. There are higher loads - 8.5-9 units.

Is there a difference in the sensations of overload on the withdrawal and descent?

Of course, the modes are different. The rocket works quite smoothly, gaining speed smoothly. At the stage of work of the first stage, an overload of 1-1.5 units. By 25-30 seconds, it gradually increases, but when the stage is separated, it drops to almost zero. On descent overload above.

About conception and giving birth in zero gravity

Tell us about any experiments on the "World" or the ISS

We had newts on the "World". Officially, they did not have a nickname, only we called one female Annie. They had colored beads on their paws and we distinguished them by color. Unfortunately, she died from heart failure. We had 14 of them. We brought them into orbit of the living healthy. But they are not lucky already on Earth. We did not sit down very well with Tolia Solovyov, we got into a terrible blizzard on February 19th. A single helicopter commander of the air army flew behind us, along with the general. He took us away and left everyone else: parachutists, a maintenance team. Frost was minus 18-19 degrees. Until the rescue vehicles reached them ... In general, the newts here were just frozen in the descent vehicle, unfortunately.



But there were a lot of experiments. I worked on the French program very much, there were interesting biological experiments. There was such an experiment "Ferti", in translation this is "birth, conception", i.e. how is born Tritons were also grown there, but at a completely different stage. Caviar was delivered to the station, fry appeared from it, from fry tadpoles, from tadpoles tritonchiki ... The task was set to see the development of the eggs, and they came to very deplorable results. There was a lot of defective division. Usually, all living things are divided multiplely: one egg cell is divided in half, then four, eight, sixteen and gone-gone-gone ... And there they caught a large percentage of the so-called. "pathological division", for example, was divided into two, and then not four, but three, or from four to five ... These are the things. So such wild exclamations, they say, let's send a married couple or some couple somewhere in space and we'll do the whole thing there, well, from a human point of view, this is crazy stuff. This is the most complicated process, not even of the birth of a man, but of his development, conception. In general, I would not risk it.

About sex

And the process of conception in weightlessness is possible? How is there at all with this feature?

Absolutely real. I think that humanity can do this in general in any place. It seems to me. It's even easier there - on the wall and on the ceiling, wherever you want. There would be a desire, but a desire to eat.

Are there any problems in this area upon return to Earth?

Well, I do not know, I think not. In any case, no one talked about the problems. “Here, I flew in and everything is bad there.” Everybody marks the opposite. Everything is fine with this matter.

Those. wives happy to return?

Yes!

About sleep

There were several questions about sleep: first, do the dreams that you see on earth and in space differ? And one such semi-mythical question: was it not that all the crew members, or several crew members, simultaneously saw the same dream?

I don’t know, first of all, I didn’t sleep with anyone, and ask what was dreaming ... (laughs). Secondly, I dream, I do not know, fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t even dream on Earth at all. Well, maybe they dream, but I do not remember them. In the same way, they never dreamed of space.

About how a dream is decorated, already enough is known, about a sleeping bag there ...

Well, I slept ... I slept very bad and disgusting at all, because it’s quite noisy on our segment. 65–67 decibels. This noise is slightly less than inside the aircraft. Therefore, I can say about sleep, of course it is worse than on Earth. I always lacked pillows, because the head dangles in this sleeping bag. I attached fur boots [fur boots] to myself instead of pillows. Turn them inside out. That fur until they are worn, clean. Turn them out, insert one into the other, and sort of like a pillow.

Regarding flashes in front of my eyes, is there such a thing when cosmic particles get into pupils?

There is.

Is it at night? or the day can also happen?

If a very powerful radiation, then it can be seen even in the daytime, under normal light, such a flash. It happens at night. At night, sometimes even wake up from it. That is, apparently, the dream is not very deep, and the flash ... It is very easy to lose orientation when you sleep. Just wake up, naturally in a sleeping bag, of course the light is turned off. I have always had the illusion that I sleep horizontally, that is, my vertical cabin, it seems to be lying horizontally, or upside down. That is such a feeling that I sleep on the wall vertically, as I normally physically sleep, I have rarely.

About silence

Is the silence of space difficult to hear?

I once only heard when the control system was cut down on our world, and we generally fell ... That is, the station stopped, the fans turned off, went out to a minimum, that is, the voltage fell below the minimum threshold, everything stopped and the body began to creak, because there it cools on the one hand, and on the other heats up. This is what the deathly silence is called (laughs). This is scary.

About the smell of space

About the smell at the station: If it is impossible to take a shower, but physical exertion is obligatory, does the station smell like a gym?

It does not smell, because we have air purification systems, three orders of magnitude better than in any gym. Removed all. Smells, ketones that may smell, or whatever. Of course, there is a specific smell at the station, because it is the smell of the car. As you enter a new plane, it smells of anything there, insulation there ... Well, this is a normal smell ... No, no.

But about the smell of space, not so long ago they wrote that it smells like ozone, or the smell of welding or something ...

Yes, it is burned metal. That is probably the closest comparison. If anyone was there at the steel mills, where the blast furnace, here there is such a smell. Is always.

When does it begin?

The ship docks in, and when these seven tons ... in principle, we have the nest that holds it, it is of such a diameter (shows), and this petal is front, on a retractable cord, it falls into the hull and starts moving on it. The speeds there are not great, 12–15 centimeters per second, but, firstly, it is metal on metal, it is vacuum, what we call cold friction welding begins. When it joins, it engages, the hooks close, and then, when we start to inflate this cavity, air gets there, and naturally it begins to smell like this burnt metal. That's when they say, "smell what the cosmos smells like," he really is.

So this is the real origin of such a smell?

I explain this to myself, because nothing else ...

And when the spacewalk in a spacesuit, through the gateway, is this smell?

No, because we have oxygen inside. There is a smell when the return lock is coming, that is, it came back ... There is, it smells like a bit of ozone when our airlock was inflated, or American. And when you take off a spacesuit, this smell of freshness, ozone ... there is something like that.



About space mutants

About the biological danger, about fungi on the "World" told ...

They are on the ISS. We have such doctor of sciences Novikova Nataliaand she’s there some terrible horrors tells that yes, there are mutating fungi, but they are mostly all imported from the Earth, and no matter how we handle, they survive. They are a little different, but most importantly, no pathogenic fungi have ever been found there. That is, all the mushrooms that exist there, they are quite a large variety, we regularly take samples from the surface, from the ventilation, from ourselves, everything is packed and sent to Earth, it is studied there, and so, no pathogenic things have been found there once.

And if there were no such stations that are harmful, for example, destroyed plastic or some kind of coating?

There are such.But we learned to fight with them in the sense that they invented plastic, which they do not eat. (laughs)

I even heard legends about aluminum ...

Yes, there is. Well, it's not even fungal, although it may be fungal lesions, but initially it is mechanical damage, and then something starts to grow there. Or some chemical damage. Urine was shed canned, and there was acid ... Well, we had cases, but I had never heard that this was something inexplicable AT ALL. In the end, until this reached. But the fact that there is no pathogen there is the most important thing.

About mustaches

Do mustaches interfere in space and do you have to shave more often than usual?

More often - no, the mustache does not interfere, we cut there once every three months, we have special machines connected to a vacuum cleaner so that nothing scatters. Immediately this is all naturally sucked, going and that's it.

To be continued ...

Wonderful photos from the cosmos in the authorship of Pavel Vinogradov and his colleagues, you can see here:
Man and space .
Space odyssey of Pavel Vinogradov .

And a big thank you to Ilya Gusev for help in preparing the text.