From
the roof of the 'Kosmotras Compound' at Yasniy,
I take a compass reading on the Dnepr launch pad
visible on the horizon several miles away. |
Under
splendid summer evening weather, the Americans
and Russians and Ukrainians involved in the launch
preparation gather in the courtyard to watch the
skies and listen to live broadcasts of launch
progress from the military team that handled it. |
While
in moscow, I visited the Institute of Medical
and Biological Problems and was given a briefing
and a tour of their isolation facility planned
for their 500-day six-person Mars mission simulation
next year.
|
I
interviewed Oleg Ivanovskiy, now 85 and the man
put in charge of
readying the Sputnik for launch, fifty years ago. To be published.
|
Russian
space doctors plan to subject volunteer crews
to longer and longer periods of isolation in order
to study possible psychological hazards of a mission
to Mars. Article to appear. |
The
'Welcome to Yasniy' sign explained a lot about
strange features seen in Google-Earth images.
The town is mainly a mining community of about
40,000, who are relatively well off by Russian
terms since they
live right next to the world's largest open-pit
asbestos mine, which is not hazardous to their
health at that stage of processing. |
