Rest week is over, it’s time to pack for Kazakhstan already!
Two planes of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center will be ready tomorrow morning to fly us from the nearby Chkalovskyi Airport to Baikonour. Yes, two planes: starting tomorrow, prime and backup crew are not allowed to be on the same vehicle. Terry, Anton and myself will be trailing behind the prime crew at about 15 minutes distance.
But before starting this whole new phase, let me wrap up my account of last week’s traditional events. On the last logbook I told you about the day-after-the-exams morning. In the afternoon, we all boarded a bus headed for the Red Square for more traditions.
It was a splendid day. On the one side, it was a lovely spring afternoon with pleasant temperatures and blossoming nature. On the other hand, we pretty much had the entire Red Square to ourselves. Not that we are that important, but we did happen to be there at the right time. It was the 8th of May, the day before Victory Day, a major Russian holiday commemorating the end of World War II and honoring veterans and casualties. Since the Red Square was being prepared for the celebrations and the military parade of the next day, it was closed to the public.
Yuri Gagarin and many other famous cosmonauts are buried at the Cremlin, along with major engineers contributing to the space program, including of course Sergei Korolev. Crews heading to space, together with their backups, always come here to pay tribute to these giants of space exploration. In particular, we had a chance to lay some flowers on the grave of Yuri Gagarin at the Cremlin wall.
The official part of the visit being over, we took some time to enjoy the Red Square and we even had a quick tour of the Cremlin gardens beyond the wall.
I enjoyed the visit immensely, everything was just perfect. An ideal send-off for my fellow Shenanigan +Alexander Gerst and his crewmates Max and Reid launching in… wow… exactly two weeks now!
(Trad IT) Traduzione in italiano a cura di +AstronautiNEWS qui:
https://www.astronautinews.it/tag/logbook/
(Trad ES) Tradducción en español aquí:
https://www.intervidia.com/category/bitacora/
(Trad FR) Traduction en français par +Anne Cpamoa ici:
https://spacetux.org/cpamoa/category/traductions/logbook-samantha/
14/05/2014