Religions in space will be more. For half a year

If you are annoyed by religious attributes on the International Space Station, then get ready - now the Russian cosmonaut, the most prominent believing cosmonaut, the commander of Soyuz MS-02 and flight engineer of the ISS-49 expedition Sergei Ryzhikov, is flying to the ISS. From cargo and personal items to the call sign and mission emblem, everything bears the stamp of religion. I would not be surprised if once again in the Zvezda module they take a part of the photos of Gagarin with Korolev and replace them with icons, which they will again begin to talk about on the Internet. Or not, if the Roscosmos noticed a previous negative reaction and was secretly asked to leave it as it was. And in order to minimize the number of unpleasant surprises, I collected all the clerical aspects of the Union MC-02.

Cosmonaut

It's funny, but Sergey Ryzhikov repeats the American space mainstream. The fact is that astronauts who came from military pilots, as a rule, were conservative, supported the party of the Republicans and were more religious people. Civilian astronauts could be feminists, protest against the war in Vietnam, vote for Democrats, and not consider religion obligatory for a “real” American. According to the official biography of the CPC, Sergey was a fighter pilot prior to enrollment in the cosmonaut corps (recruited in 2006). I couldn’t find an interview with him; in general, it seems that he is a rather modest person, so we don’t know the history of coming to faith. But on the site of the Church of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles, Grand Duke Vladimir of the ROCOR in Houston, there is information that on his working trip to the USA in his spare time Sergey served as a psalm-reader (as a reader and singer, it can be held by lay people and even women)


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After that, it is not at all surprising that Sergei crossed himself and kissed the cross on the sprinkling of holy water before boarding the bus to the rocket, and crossed before the launch of the rocket already in the ship.

Call Sign and Emblem

For the first time in the history of Russian cosmonautics, the crew has a call sign with a religious tinge - Favor. According to the gospel on Mount Tabor, the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ took place. Formally, this call sign is in the tradition of geographical callsigns, but the previous ones were neutral - “Kazbek”, “Utes”, “Yenisei”. The call sign "Olympus" was at Fedor Yurchikhin, but it is difficult to suspect him in classical Greek paganism.

The emblem of the crew is also curious.



The emblem depicts Mount Tabor and the light above the mountain . The surnames of the crew are written in Slavic script, and, which is rarely (if not the first) encountered, the call sign is written directly on the emblem.

Personal things

At a press conference in early September, the entire crew was asked what they would take on a semi-annual flight (from 12:09).



Shane Kimbrough will take with him photographs of friends and relatives, things of schools and universities where he studied and the symbolism of a sports team.
Sergey Ryzhikov, in addition to photographs and letters of relatives and city emblems, will take the Gospel, icons, stones from Mount Tabor, and in the toy-indicator of weightlessness, a particle of earth will fly from the Vostochny cosmodrome.
Andrei Borisenko will take with him a talisman - dragon, because he was born in the year of the dragon, a thing, alas, a little different from the stones from Mount Favor in the degree of superstition.

Funny, but the most atheistic of the whole troika is an American. However, he could very well in a politically correct manner not to indicate in the reply any religious paraphernalia he took with him.

Cargo

According to TASS , as part of the additional cargo in the ship will take part of the relics of Seraphim Sarovsky. According to the plan, the expedition will last 155 days, a particle of the relics will return with the crew.

Photo

The place of the clerical and anticlerical battles on the ISS unwittingly is the site of the Zvezda module, against which astronauts often write addresses and greetings. In 2015, during the flight of Gennady Padalka to the ISS, all the icons that were hanging there were removed from this wall and added more photos of Gagarin, the Queen and Tsiolkovsky. Above the photos was and remained a large Orthodox cross. The view of the wall has not changed since then, here is a photo of spring 2016.



The ISS is the crew's workplace, and new people can easily equip it according to their tastes, so photographs and other objects can appear or disappear on it. It will be curious to see whether the crew of Soyuz MS-02 will change something, but even if they hang icons at every corner, new astronauts will still arrive in six months. Well, there is little hope that the press service of Roskosmos noticed a negative reaction on the Internet to the icons and asked to leave the wall as it is.

Conclusion

Alas, not only absolute atheists were involved in cosmonautics ( I wrote here in more detail ). Also, astronauts who are believing astronauts were not screened out by doctors and psychologists, obviously, their physical and mental abilities completely allow them to spend a difficult six months on the watch in space. They have passed the necessary exams and are professionals. And finally, there are no miracles, gods and magic, and the “correct atheistic magic” did not break the rocket with the clerical load (the story with the transfer of start from the cable is a normal workflow). Well, Article 14 of the Constitution works in both directions - it is wrong to expel astronauts from work simply because they are believers. So it remains only to console ourselves with the thought that scientific experiments that will be carried out, including astronauts and believers, will expand our knowledge of nature and man and bring the beautiful world of the victorious Mind closer.

On the tag "Sharp cosmic issues" - religion, sex and toilet torment.