If you belong to those who dream not grass at home, but just the same rumble and blueness, if on April 12 you consider the main holiday of the year, if the names of Gagarin and Korolev are sacred to you, and the abrackadabra SK17P32-5 makes the heart beat faster, but while in the wallet there are not over thirty million US dollars left, you can be congratulated . With the fact that you have come to the page of "Subtleties", where we will tell in detail how one can experience almost everything that the conquerors of stellar distances go through - cosmonauts and space tourists - and, with The most important thing is to preserve further solvency . Of course, there can not be a full replacement for the ISS tour on Earth: no multimedia 3D dioramas will break the unassuming view of the vast blackness beyond the porthole, and the underwater dabbling in the spacesuit in the Star City tiled pool is as far from going out into outer space, like winding a kilometer on an exercise bike from a bike ride through the autumn forest . Nevertheless, you can see for yourselves what the cosmonauts see in the last minutes before the start, a tube from the tube and a freeze-dried chop and test the notorious Centrifuge-18 device (or rather it will test it) . In a word, "fly" to space and not fly to the pipe .

Look launch from Baikonur

Tours to the Baikonur cosmodrome - one of the most popular ways to traverse the astronauts' path. The trips are offered in two ways: to launch a launch vehicle with a spacecraft - the Progress cargo vehicle, a satellite or other "glands" and send off for a long expedition of the next crew of the International Space Station. This, of course, is more interesting (and more expensive), but it happens much less often than "unoccupied" starts, you can go to almost every two weeks. The duration of the tours to Baikonur is from 3 to 5 days

The standard tour program for starting a manned spacecraft includes the following: arrival - arrival to the airfield of the city of Baikonur (recall: Russian citizens may not take passport), accommodation at the hotel and a sightseeing tour of the city with a visit to the Baikonur History Museum, the International Space School, an inspection of Gagarin's gazebo, a monument to space explorers and other attractions . Next day to get acquainted with the launch pad of the cosmodrome: from No. 112 one can observe the export of the Soyuz carrier rocket, its transportation on a special railroad track and the subsequent installation at the famous Gagarin launch site (launch pad No. 1), visit the installation and test building and the installer "Energia" carrier rocket used to launch Progress cargo ships into orbit . Then, at the site No. 250, the tourists will be shown the space system "Energia" - "Buran", and on No. 200 - the launch vehicle launch pad Proton . At the first launch pad in the meantime preparations are preparing for the upcoming launch .

Finally, the day of the start comes. . Together with the administrative and technical staff of the cosmodrome, tourists are invited to conduct astronauts in their "extreme" before a long zero-gravity journey across the earth - from the Cosmonaut Hotel, where the crew members live, to the site number 254, where a pre-flight medical examination will take place and the mission commander's report on the readiness of the team to fly . will sound here. The astronauts 'and tourists' paths will disperse: some will be taken to the spacecraft, others to the observation post, site No. 18 , located just 1, 4 km from the start . Then there will be what we so often see on TV: the withdrawal of the central farm, ignition, broaching, starting, flame, roar, hum and heat, the removal of four small supports - and a slow , strained detachment of the rocket from the ground . Cher 30 minutes after the start of the tourists are brought to Gagarin start, the land around which is still hot from the flames of missile engines .

In addition, tourists are invited to walk along the Cosmonauts Alley, visit the memorial houses of Korolev and Gagarin, try on a spacesuit and be photographed in the guise of an astronaut , see personal belongings of the first cosmonaut of the planet and many other unique exhibits in the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum and finally buy space gifts in the local market.

To pass training in the Star City

Located just 25 km from Moscow, the city of Schelkovo-14, or Star City - the brain, soul and heart of the space odyssey on Earth .Here come ordinary people, and they leave - almost with James Bonds from space: and withstand tenfold overloads, and screw the nut in an airless space, and make a sandwich of bread, sausage and ketchup scattered in all directions, and manually connect the "Progress" that came from Earth with an accuracy of a millimeter - all can graduate of the Cosmonaut Training Center named after Yu .A.Gagarin, the main enterprise of the Star City .Recently, this super training is available not only to those who are going to "plow ...", but also to all comers, of course, in the absence of medical contraindications .

The standard intensive program lasts from 30 days; depending on the personal workload of the tourist outside the Star (work, family and t .P.) preparation can last up to three months .What is the most pleasant, after the course is issued a valid certificate of passing training and fitness for flights to space - so that at least in the cosmonaut detachment write down, at least become a space tourist ... or you can just hang a frame at home .The basic points of the Gagarin program are first of all biological tests and medical training, since if the potential cosmonaut is not strictly friendly with the vestibular apparatus, he will no longer need to understand the device of the spacesuit .This includes tests on various devices that torment human nature: twisting, turning and throwing .Among the masterpieces of the exposition - centrifuges ЦФ-7 and ЦФ-18, used for "research of human tolerance of various kinds of overloads (head-pelvis, chest-back and t .e .) ."Then - on a fresh head! - tourists undergo general space training, study the device of the transport carrier Soyuz (in which they will reach the orbit) and the Russian segment of the International Space Station .

Another important stage of the theoretical training is classes on astronavigation in the planetarium of the Center. Potential cosmonauts learn to find and determine the constellations of both hemispheres, navigate in the starry sky and set the course of spacecraft in the stars - just like the ancient seafarers. Here is a vivid example of how the wheel of history periodically turns the same spoke up.

After successfully mastering the theoretical course, they begin practical training - training on the Soyuz simulators and the Russian part of the ISS .A separate cycle is dedicated to the intricacies of handling a spacesuit: tourists learn to put on, or, as the cosmonauts say, go into the spacesuit, move in it and manipulate objects, practice the suit of sealing a spacesuit and learn the procedure for an emergency .By the way, during the space expedition 2 types of spacesuits are used: the cosmonauts put on a lightweight "Falcon" on board the Soyuz spacecraft during take-off and landing (and appear in official photos); heavy Orlan is designed for spacewalks .And the open space itself is imitated in the hydro laboratory of the Cosmonaut Training Center - a vast basin with mock-ups of various parts of the space station .Despite its shallow depth, special compression chambers allow the pressure to be inflated to 10 atmospheres, which is identical to the water mass pressure of 100 m height .

Finally, in the final part of the training, the tourists make a flight on the "flying laboratory" - the IL-76 aircraft, during which about 30 seconds soar in zero gravity - this is not due to reaching the boundaries of space, but according to the laws of physics: the flight passes along a parabola, at the top of which there is zero gravity. If desired, the program can also include flight to the stratosphere on the MiG with aerobatics figures.

Go to the Cosmonautics Museum

Those who wish to join the Space in a "light" form, without moving away from the house and reducing costs to an absolute minimum, you can recommend going to the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, which is located on Mira Avenue, near the exit from the metro station "VDNH" .The museum is located in the basement of the monument to the Conquerors of Space .The idea of ​​the exposition, which tells about the history of space exploration, belonged to Korolyov .The museum was opened in the year of the twentieth anniversary of Gagarin's flight - 1981, and recently experienced a large-scale reconstruction and, so to say, an "upgrade of interest" .At 4200 meters of the square visitors can see not only classical exhibits - archival documents, personal belongings of lights from astronautics and photographic materials, but also full-scale models of space technology and a special pride of the museum - interactive models .First of all, these are all kinds of simulators, identical to those used today in the Star City .The most interesting of them are the simulator of rendezvous and docking of the "transport worker" and the simulator of the International Space Station .In the miniature Flight Control Center, you can see the ISS trajectory in real time .The pearl of the exposition is an interactive Buran booth with a mobility system and a panoramic stereo image .Very interesting and a collection of spacesuits and flying clothes - it has more than 300 exhibits! Well, among the most valuable items - an album of photo documents about the First World Exhibition of Interplanetary Vehicles in 1927, a catapulted container for animals, in which the Belka and Strelka returned to Earth (their own stuffed animals are also here), a spacesuit for dogs, - special spoons, forks, knives and scissors, the first artificial Earth satellite, the first lunar rover and a duplicate of the Vostok ship .The museum holds interesting excursions for lovers of space in all ages .

Author - Alexandra Azarova.