Word: krikalev
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Dates: during 1992-1992
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...plot of the story was familiar to any science-fiction fan. The crew of a rocket ship returns to earth after a long space voyage only to find everything changed. It was exactly that way for Sergei Krikalev. When he blasted off in May 1991, he was one of the proudest of elites, a Soviet cosmonaut. Last week, when he came back after 313 days in orbit, he found a different world...
...Krikalev landed on the snowy plains of Kazakhstan, an independent country. He was wearing the emblems of the U.S.S.R., but it no longer exists. His hometown is called St. Petersburg again, not Leningrad. Understandably, Krikalev's knees were a bit rubbery. He was given a whiff of smelling salts and a cup of soup...
...events on the ground with interest, for politics kept him aloft. After the aborted coup in August, newly emergent Kazakhstan, where the launch facilities are located, demanded that a Kazakh cosmonaut be put into space. The mission directors complied last October but had to talk a less than thrilled Krikalev into staying in orbit an extra five months to help train the new crew...
...Sergei Krikalev got more than he bargained for when he rocketed into space last May from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, located in what was then still known as the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. Krikalev was scheduled for a five-month stint as flight engineer aboard the Mir space station; his replacement was slated to arrive in October. Who could have foreseen that Krikalev's country would disintegrate before his mission was over? By the time October rolled around, the Baikonur facility was on the verge of belonging to Kazakhstan , rather than the Soviet Union. As a public relations measure, space-program...
...Krikalev's troubles are symbolic of what has happened to the Soviet space program. As recently as last year, 34 years after Sputnik, the U.S.S.R. was basking in its reputation as the premier spacefaring nation in the world. Now political fragmentation and economic upheaval are raising questions about whether the successor states will be able to support a viable space program at all. In the U.S., even as officials debate the larger question of whether the West should provide economic aid to these states, a more specific debate is under way over the wisdom of striking commercial deals involving their...