On Saturday I had the opportunity to travel to Star City. This is the facility where Russia trains its Cosmonauts and other folks prepping for space journey. US Astronauts also spend time here. I took a lot of photos of the trip out and back along with the facility. It's only 30 or so km from here but traffic is so congested on the route it takes 2 hours to get there. Saturday morning is a bad time for "dacha" traffic, all the folks going to their getaway homes. We passed many of them along the way, many no more than a few hundred square feet with no running water. We also passed a satellite dish that was at least a mile off the road and still looked huge, maybe 200 feet across or more.
The worst part of the traffic was near our destination where 4 lanes goes down to 2 to cross the train tracks, very busy train tracks. We arrived to a very wooded area with lots of rather nondescript 60's era buildings. It reminded me of a rundown or maybe unkempt college campus. The bus barely fit through the gate. When we got off the bus we were met by our tour guide, a very nice gentlemen who spoke some English and was in the space program for 30 plus years, first as a cosmonaut in training and then as an engineer.
We visited three different buildings. First was the Aqua Center where space work is practiced in the underwater mockups. Then we visited the simulator building and finally the centrifuge building. I was most amazed by the centrifuge as it is the largest in the world.
We then visited some of the grounds and the monument to Yuri Gagarin.
The trip back was uneventful and took much less time then the trip out. This was another unique tour I have been able to go on here and hope to do more.
Photos, photos, photos!
wow- that looked like fun (cept for the busride out maybe). so you didn't take a ride in the centrifuge??? Makes me queasy just to think about it.
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