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Back from Moscow
E.T
Quote-o-matic
in Zocalo v2.0
Got today back from week long "excursion" to aviation and space related places in and around Moscow.
Seats in train between Helsinki and Moscow weren't really comfortable but at least those win any seats of aircrafts and there was enough space to sleep part of that 13 hours... or at least try. (tracks are bouncy in there)
We had rooms in Voshod-hotel near Vladykino metro station and place was actually quite good, except feeling of floor being tilted in room. Also place was little farther from center of Moscow so smoke wasn't so bad in there although one of the ring roads going from front of hotel made sure that there was always some smoke in air. (and noise from traffic) Metro is absolutely cheapest and fastest way of moving in there, ten entry ticket to metro system cost 140 roubles (<4 euros) but hearing protectors would be highly recommendable because those trains are as noisy as flying numbers of airshows! Also seats aren't very often available in bigger amounts and often even standing places about run out, also temperature in underground tunnels and stations is probably something from sub tropical to tropical. (30-35C outside did't feel so bad compared to full metro train)
From visited places Mission Control Center of ISS wasn't so special... except that from surrounding area and look of buildings you wouldn't believe what's in there. Neither there was so much interesting things in Star City but Monino Air Force Museum had lot of aircrafts and helicopters.
Museum of Energia company had lot of space related things on display, including many Soyuz capsules... backrest of "seat" is definitely very comfortable but passenger aircrafts have royal amount of space for legs compared to that thing... also astronauts/cosmonauts can't really reach most of the buttons so they have special sticks for pushing those. :p
As other nice details presenter told that workers had nearly forgotten to remove one lens/sensor protection cap from some probe during preparations for launch and that Soviet probe which took first photos from "dark"/back side of the moon used American film. (designer of camera system got film secretly from friend working in depot storing shot down US spy balloons)
In IKI Space Institute we saw lot of test labs used for testing spacecraft/equipment and laser lab under construction. Laser will shoot ~10 Joule pulses (power will be in petawatt class so pulses are very short) and will be used for simulating micro meteoroid impacts among other things.
Also there was one scientist who was exactly like caricature of scientist presented in some movies. :D
Seats in train between Helsinki and Moscow weren't really comfortable but at least those win any seats of aircrafts and there was enough space to sleep part of that 13 hours... or at least try. (tracks are bouncy in there)
We had rooms in Voshod-hotel near Vladykino metro station and place was actually quite good, except feeling of floor being tilted in room. Also place was little farther from center of Moscow so smoke wasn't so bad in there although one of the ring roads going from front of hotel made sure that there was always some smoke in air. (and noise from traffic) Metro is absolutely cheapest and fastest way of moving in there, ten entry ticket to metro system cost 140 roubles (<4 euros) but hearing protectors would be highly recommendable because those trains are as noisy as flying numbers of airshows! Also seats aren't very often available in bigger amounts and often even standing places about run out, also temperature in underground tunnels and stations is probably something from sub tropical to tropical. (30-35C outside did't feel so bad compared to full metro train)
From visited places Mission Control Center of ISS wasn't so special... except that from surrounding area and look of buildings you wouldn't believe what's in there. Neither there was so much interesting things in Star City but Monino Air Force Museum had lot of aircrafts and helicopters.
Museum of Energia company had lot of space related things on display, including many Soyuz capsules... backrest of "seat" is definitely very comfortable but passenger aircrafts have royal amount of space for legs compared to that thing... also astronauts/cosmonauts can't really reach most of the buttons so they have special sticks for pushing those. :p
As other nice details presenter told that workers had nearly forgotten to remove one lens/sensor protection cap from some probe during preparations for launch and that Soviet probe which took first photos from "dark"/back side of the moon used American film. (designer of camera system got film secretly from friend working in depot storing shot down US spy balloons)
In IKI Space Institute we saw lot of test labs used for testing spacecraft/equipment and laser lab under construction. Laser will shoot ~10 Joule pulses (power will be in petawatt class so pulses are very short) and will be used for simulating micro meteoroid impacts among other things.
Also there was one scientist who was exactly like caricature of scientist presented in some movies. :D
Comments
[quote]also astronauts/cosmonauts can't really reach most of the buttons so they have special sticks for pushing those. [/quote]
Pushing buttons with sticks? They must have a "Confirm" button under a protective lid, or delayed effect and a big "Cancel" button in easy reach then! :D
How long were you there?
Train crossed border in evening of 18th day but it arrived to Moscow in next morning and departure was late in evening of 25th and crossing border next morning.
[QUOTE=sleepy_shadow;164329]Pushing buttons with sticks? They must have a "Confirm" button under a protective lid, or delayed effect and a big "Cancel" button in easy reach then! :D[/QUOTE]I can assure that there ain't any way to reach buttons otherwise unless you have hands which stretch to double length.
I think practically all critical systems and sequences, like those during launch and descent, were quite automatic after starting them... they didn't trust much to skills of their cosmonauts when it came to those.
(actually that one manual docking test of Progress to MIR didn't do much good to station if you remember that)