Sunday 24 March 2013

SERGEI KRIKALYEV

Sergei Krikalyev was a Soviet cosmonaut who went up to the Mir space station in May 1991. At the end of the year he was still circling the globe, since nobody could make a decision to bring him back again. The reason was that while he was up there, the Soviet Union collapsed, being replaced by the Russian Federation and the other sovereign republics of the former union. He couldn't even ask his Russian colleagues to sort things out, since the former Soviet Space Centre found itself in the newly independent republic of Kazakhstan. You wonder if the authorities there demanded a visa when he eventually got back to terra firma.

I rather like that story. Not least because it ended well. Sergei Krikalyev is now the head of human space flight for the international space station.

Walter Blotscher
Posted by Walter Blotscher at 12:50

1 comment:

  1. Michael24 March 2013 at 17:46

    A good story. I am always interested in your use of language. "Not least" being the present example. A depiction of you in a novel would need the author to pick well these character traits.

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