What Happened to the Astronaut Who Was Lost in Space for 311 Lonely Days_
What Happened to the Astronaut Who Was Lost in Space for 311 Lonely Days_
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00:00We've all imagined what it would be like
00:02to visit outer space, but while being an astronaut
00:05is a dream for many young kids and adults,
00:08there's one spaceman out there that found himself
00:11in a real-life cosmic nightmare, being lost in space.
00:16So join me on this truly wild tale,
00:19traversing through the collapse of nations
00:21and into the territory of literal time travel itself
00:24in the story of what happened to the astronaut
00:26who was lost in space for 311 lonely days.
00:36The Race for Space.
00:38Our story begins in the Soviet Union, Russia specifically.
00:43Sergei Krikalev was born on August 27th, 1958
00:47in the city of Leningrad, known as St. Petersburg today.
00:51As a young boy, Sergei was all too aware
00:53of the intense space race between the Soviet Union
00:56and the USA.
00:58In outgrowth of the mid-20th century Cold War,
01:01the space race was a series
01:03of competitive technological showcases
01:05with each side aiming to prove superiority in spaceflight.
01:09As the years went by, Sergei continued to keep his sights
01:12set on the stars in his own race for space
01:15and gained a degree in mechanical engineering in 1981
01:18from the Leningrad Mechanical Institute.
01:21After graduating, Sergei found work with the NPO Energia,
01:25the Russian industrial organization responsible
01:27for manned spaceflight activities
01:29for the Soviet space program.
01:31In his early years there,
01:33Sergei tested spaceflight equipment
01:35and worked as part of ground control for space missions.
01:38Sergei played a key role among the ground control team
01:41during an in-orbit rescue mission
01:42of the Salyut 7 space station after it failed in 1985
01:47and was able to remotely guide repairs
01:49of the station's onboard control system.
01:51After these successes,
01:53Sergei was selected for cosmonaut training.
01:56This intensive course covered a whole manner
01:58of space-related learning,
01:59including astronomy, orbital mechanics
02:02and methods of scientific experimentation.
02:05Upon completing his training,
02:06Sergei finally earned his cosmonaut wings in 1986.
02:11If you're wondering why I'm referring to Sergei
02:13as a cosmonaut rather than an astronaut,
02:16it's because technically,
02:17cosmonauts are people specifically trained
02:20by the Russian Space Agency
02:22and the word literally means universe sailor.
02:25Pretty cool, right?
02:26In early 1988, Sergei began training
02:29for his first long-duration spaceflight
02:31aboard the Mir space station,
02:33which at the time was the largest
02:35artificial space satellite in orbit.
02:37Launched on February 20th, 1986,
02:40the overall objective for Mir was to research
02:43how the human body reacted to space travel,
02:45as well as observational sciences,
02:47including studies of the Earth's surface.
02:50On November 26th, 1988,
02:52it was finally Sergei's turn to blast off to Mir
02:55on the Soyuz TM-7 expedition,
02:58a joint mission involving both French
03:00and Soviet space venturers.
03:02The mission came to an end 151 days later
03:05on April 27th, 1989.
03:08With a relatively smooth operation under his belt,
03:10Sergei found himself desperate to get back up there,
03:14to infinity and beyond.
03:16But unbeknownst to Sergei,
03:18his next trip would leave him desperate
03:19to get back to Earth.
03:23Life on Mirs.
03:24By December 1990, Sergei was already preparing
03:27for his second spaceflight as part of the crew
03:29for the Soyuz TM-12 mission.
03:32On May 18th, 1991, Sergei arrived
03:35at the Baikonur Cosmodrome,
03:37which was famous for being the world's first spaceport
03:40to launch rockets into space.
03:42Alongside him was Anatoly Artsabarsky,
03:45an experienced Ukrainian commander,
03:48and Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut.
03:51The Baikonur Cosmodrome, found in what is now Kazakhstan,
03:54had already been the setting for some truly amazing firsts
03:57in space travel, including the launch
04:00of the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik,
04:02on October 4th, 1957.
04:05It was also the site from which Yuri Gagarin
04:07became the first human being to travel into space
04:10on April 12th, 1961.
04:13While Sergei's mission was said to be rather routine,
04:16as far as flying into space can be, I guess,
04:18unbeknownst to him, in 311 days,
04:21he was going to find himself listed alongside
04:23Baikonur's most historic travelers.
04:27If Sergei believed in omens,
04:28then he may have clocked early on
04:30that this trip wasn't set to be an easy one.
04:33As the spacecraft carrying him, Anatoly, and Helen,
04:36approached Mir after a two-day trek to the station,
04:39the targeting system failed,
04:41meaning that Sergei had to dock their rocket manually.
04:44Space stations like Mir are all equipped
04:46with an automatic docking system,
04:48which enables two spacecrafts to locate each other
04:51and stay in the same orbit.
04:53Doing this manually is a dangerous affair,
04:55and just one wrong move can be fatal.
04:58But ever the cool-headed guy,
04:59Sergei managed to dock the crew safely.
05:02Mir could accommodate up to six people,
05:05but usually just three cosmonauts lived there at once
05:07because it was so cramped.
05:09The space station saw 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets,
05:13every day, and therefore,
05:15residents would have to block out portholes
05:17to plunge the station into darkness
05:18as they slept to simulate nighttime.
05:21The cosmonauts usually woke up around 8 a.m.
05:24on Moscow's time zone and began work for the day,
05:26conducting scientific experiments
05:28and maintaining the space station.
05:30At 1 p.m., the astronauts would come home
05:33to the communal area for lunch and a workout.
05:35But these workouts aren't just for flexing.
05:38In space, it's really important to keep your strength up,
05:41as low gravity takes a toll on your muscle mass.
05:44The process of losing muscle, also known as atrophy,
05:47has seen astronauts experience up to a 20% loss
05:50of muscle mass on spaceflights,
05:52and that's on missions lasting just five to 11 days.
05:56After lunch and that all-important workout,
05:59the cosmonauts would spend another three hours working,
06:01plus another hour of exercise.
06:04The day wrapped up with dinner
06:05and some free time in the evening,
06:06which, most understandably,
06:08spent gazing out one of the many portholes
06:11at the blue marble we call Earth.
06:13While being in space certainly has its wonders,
06:16life on Mir wasn't exactly a glamorous affair.
06:19Much like the fictional spaceship, the Millennium Falcon,
06:22Mir was often thought of as simultaneously
06:24a masterpiece of modern engineering
06:26and a complete and utter piece of trash.
06:29What a piece of junk!
06:31Technical malfunctions were pretty much constant on Mir,
06:34and by the time Sergei docked for his second visit
06:36to the space station,
06:37it had developed so many electrical problems
06:40that the lights kept flickering off at random intervals.
06:43Not concerning at all, right?
06:45Not only was this frustrating for the astronauts
06:48as they went about their day's work,
06:49but it was also a blinking reminder
06:51of just how much they had to rely
06:53on this faulty technology to breathe and stay pressurized.
06:56In other words, to survive.
06:58Each flicker must have been horrifying.
07:01On top of that, the constant technical mishaps
07:03often caused the station's temperature and humidity
07:06to rise and fall rapidly
07:08and thus became a breeding ground for microorganisms.
07:11As a result, the station reeked of mold
07:13as well as space pilot B.O.
07:16Basically, Mir was the designated
07:18college dorm room of space.
07:20But none of that mattered to Sergei,
07:22who considered Mir a home away from home.
07:25Space was his own personal playground,
07:27and he loved the feeling of weightlessness
07:29and learning how to fly from one side
07:31of the space station to the other.
07:33Not only that, but Sergei had an awesome crew around him,
07:36including his space buddies, Anatoly and Helen,
07:39as well as two other cosmonauts
07:41who had been on Mir since December 1990.
07:44On May 26th, 1991, Helen and two of the other cosmonauts
07:48completed their missions and headed back to Earth,
07:50leaving Sergei and Anatoly to their own mission,
07:53maintaining and repairing the station.
07:58A Space of Collapse.
08:00Sergei's mission was planned to end in October 1991,
08:04so he still had five whole months left on Mir,
08:06and there was plenty of work to do.
08:09The most thrilling tasks were the six spacewalks
08:11that Sergei and Anatoly had planned to complete
08:14during their stay to conduct essential repairs
08:16and upgrades to the external parts of the space station.
08:19In the final spacewalk of the mission,
08:21terrifyingly, Anatoly's helmet visor fogged up
08:24due to his spacesuit's heat exchanger running out of water.
08:28While still tethered to the station,
08:29Sergei had to guide his basically blind commander
08:32back to safety, and thankfully, they made it.
08:36However, in August, not far from their mission's end date,
08:39everything changed.
08:40From his intergalactic point of view,
08:42Sergei was able to take a whistle-stop tour
08:44through the wonders of the world in just an hour and a half
08:47as Mir circled Earth, from the Pyramids of Giza
08:51to the Great Barrier Reef to the Grand Canyon.
08:54What he couldn't see were the tanks
08:56rolling through Moscow's Red Square,
08:58which signaled the collapse of the nation he called home.
09:01At the time, the Soviet Union was commanded
09:04by President Mikhail Gorbachev,
09:06who had frustrated communist hardliners
09:08with his reform program, Perestroika,
09:11which sought to restructure the state's political
09:13and economic systems.
09:15While tensions had been rumbling in the Soviet Union
09:17since the 1980s, things finally reached the boiling point
09:21on August 19th, 1991, when a coup began
09:24to remove Gorbachev from power.
09:26Despite lasting just a couple of days before being called off,
09:29the coup had a lasting effect on the USSR,
09:32and it was clear that the Soviet Union's days were numbered.
09:36Given how confusing things were becoming in the USSR,
09:39getting accurate news was a challenge,
09:41and Sergei worried constantly about his family and friends
09:44as they experienced the political unrest on the ground.
09:47Sergei kept up with the unfolding events in the USSR
09:50as best as he could, mainly being kept informed
09:53by his wife, Yelena, who worked in mission control.
09:56There were also various amateur radio operators
09:59who Sergei was able to speak with
10:00via Mir's communication system.
10:02One of these radio operators
10:04was American-born Russian-language graduate,
10:07Margaret Iaquinto, who provided him with uncensored news
10:10about the political situation in the Soviet Union.
10:13Sergei was understandably confused over what was going on,
10:17wondering exactly what all this meant
10:19for the space program and his mission.
10:21Little did he know that he and Mir
10:23were about to become entangled in the USSR's downfall.
10:27The Last Soviet Cosmonaut.
10:31As the months unfolded, individual Soviet states
10:34began breaking away from the Soviet Union,
10:36and by December, most states were independent.
10:40One of the last to do this was Kazakhstan,
10:43which declared independence on December 16th, 1991,
10:46which threw a sizable spanner in the works
10:48for the Soviet space program.
10:51Remember the Baikonur Cosmodrome,
10:53where Sergei took off from?
10:54Well, that now belonged to the new government
10:57of the Republic of Kazakhstan,
10:59and they weren't too keen on sharing.
11:01Kazakhstan's government tried to charge astronomical fees
11:04for use of the space complex,
11:06and Russia, strapped for money
11:08due to the dissolution of the USSR, needed a solution fast.
11:13To appease this new Kazakh government,
11:15the Soviet space program agency,
11:17whose headquarters were in Moscow,
11:18agreed for a spot on the next shuttle to Mir
11:21to be given to a Kazakhstani cosmonaut.
11:24This was a big problem for Sergei,
11:26as the inclusion of Tokhtar Avakarov, the Kazakh cosmonaut,
11:30meant that the planned flight engineer replacement,
11:33Alexander Kaleri, was bumped from the mission.
11:36Without the ability to send someone in possession
11:38of the skills needed to replace him,
11:40mission control informed Sergei
11:42that he would have to remain on Mir indefinitely.
11:46The team of three new cosmonauts joined the Mir crew
11:48on October 4th, led by Commander Alexander Volkov,
11:52who Sergei already knew from his first time on Mir.
11:55Just six days later, two of the cosmonauts returned to Earth
11:58along with Anatoly, whose job as commander
12:01was passed over to Alexander Volkov.
12:03By December 26th of that year,
12:05the Soviet Union had completely broken apart
12:07into 15 different republics, with Gorbachev resigning.
12:11The international union that had sent Sergei into space
12:14literally didn't exist anymore.
12:16And even worse, the lost cosmonaut was their last priority.
12:21His Soviet passport now invalid,
12:23Sergei found himself stateless
12:24and could only watch helplessly
12:26as the nation he'd known on Earth fizzled out.
12:29After ringing in both Christmas Day and New Year
12:32in outer space, Sergei began to wonder
12:34if he'd ever get back down to Earth.
12:37While the company of his fellow cosmonaut,
12:39Commander Volkov, was nice,
12:41the problem was that the longer Sergei remained in space,
12:44the more strapped for cash Russia became.
12:47It got so dire that the rebranded Russian space agency
12:50could barely afford to fly food and supplies
12:52the 240 miles outside of the Earth's atmosphere to Mir,
12:56let alone find the funds to get a replacement for Sergei.
12:59With his future, and even survival,
13:01growing increasingly uncertain,
13:03Sergei could do nothing but continue waiting and wishing
13:06on every passing star that good news would come soon,
13:09and that his prolonged stint in space
13:11wouldn't have any dire consequences on his health.
13:14While the effects of long-term spaceflight
13:15are still not fully understood today,
13:17even in the 90s, it was known
13:19that long-haul space stayers like Sergei
13:21faced some serious health risks.
13:23For one thing, being in a closer proximity to the sun
13:26than on Earth left Sergei exposed to radiation
13:28from highly energetic solar particles,
13:31vastly increasing the risk of developing cataracts
13:34and even cancer.
13:35In the face of all this, it should be noted
13:37that there was one way for Sergei to get home,
13:40but using it would incur a heavy toll.
13:43There was a Soyuz capsule on board Mir,
13:46specifically designed for returning to Earth
13:49in an emergency.
13:50But here's the problem,
13:51Sergei was the only cosmonaut left on Mir
13:54with the overall technical know-how to keep things running.
13:57If he did decide to leave,
13:59it could mean the end of the space station forever.
14:02It seemed that Sergei was caught
14:04in his very own spaceman dilemma.
14:06What was more important, his mission or going home?
14:11Out of the present.
14:13Despite the physical and mental toll
14:15that his space stay was taking on him,
14:17Sergei's sheer determination and commitment to his mission
14:20outshone even the brightest star.
14:22He remained busily working away to keep Mir going
14:25for almost three more months.
14:28But unlike an ejected sus imposter,
14:30Sergei did not spend the rest of his life
14:32floating around in space.
14:34Help was just around the corner.
14:36In March 1992, Germany paid $24 million
14:40in a stroke of political bargaining with Russia
14:42for Klaus Dietrich Flod to travel to Mir,
14:45becoming the first German astronaut in space.
14:48This meant that Russia could finally afford a replacement
14:50for Sergei, who by this time had spent a total
14:53of 10 months orbiting Earth,
14:55having circled the planet around 5,000 times.
14:58Elated by the news that he was finally homeward bound,
15:01Sergei could finally turn his mind
15:03to getting his feet back on solid ground
15:05and reuniting with his wife and daughter.
15:07Using some of the money paid by Germany,
15:09Russia's space agency selected cosmonaut Alexander Kaller
15:13to replace Sergei.
15:15On March 17th, 1992, the Soyuz TM-14 crew,
15:19including Alexander and Klaus, the German,
15:21whose $24 million travel fare had paid
15:24for Sergei's trip home,
15:25launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome towards Mir.
15:29A week after the crew arrived,
15:30Sergei was finally able to make his way back down to Earth
15:33alongside Klaus and his buddy, Commander Volkov.
15:36On March 25th, 1992, the Soyuz rocket landed at Baikonur.
15:41As the doors opened, a small crowd flocked
15:44around the landed rocket as a dizzy spaceman
15:45as pale as flower emerged.
15:47They could just about make out the red Soviet flag
15:50on his spacesuit, next to some stitching
15:51they read USSR in Russian letters.
15:54The last true Soviet citizen.
15:56After 10 months of muscle atrophy,
15:59several men had to help him stand against Earth's gravity
16:02and supported him as he placed his feet on the ground,
16:05inhaling breaths of fresh atmospheric air
16:08for the first time in 311 days.
16:12A fur coat was thrown over him
16:14and he was able to enjoy a bowl of broth,
16:16his first bit of fresh food in almost a year,
16:20on his airplane flight back to Russia
16:22to reunite with his wife, Valina, and young daughter, Olga.
16:26Arriving in a much-changed Russia,
16:28Sergei must have felt like quite the alien.
16:31Even his hometown had changed its name
16:33while he was up in space,
16:34from Leningrad to St. Petersburg.
16:37But the Earth and the validity of his Soviet passport
16:40weren't the only things that had changed
16:42since Sergei's time in outer space.
16:44We've already covered some of the more nefarious
16:46physical side effects of space travel,
16:48but there's one side effect
16:49that'd be worth bragging to your friends about.
16:52Time traveling 0.02 seconds into the future.
16:55That's right, Sergei actually holds the record
16:58for the biggest human leap in time travel.
17:00How's that possible?
17:02Well, according to Einstein's theories of relativity,
17:05the speed at which an object is traveling
17:07and the distance from a massive gravitational source
17:10like the Earth can actually change
17:12the way that object experiences time.
17:14Sounds kind of wooey, doesn't it?
17:17That's what the practically-minded manufacturers
17:19of some of the first GPS satellites thought too.
17:22Yet, when they sent their satellites up,
17:24which featured atomic clocks accurate to the nanosecond,
17:27they were astounded by what they found.
17:30Within minutes of activation,
17:31compared to the clocks they had on Earth,
17:33the internal clocks of the satellites
17:35were running very slightly faster.
17:38But by enough of a factor
17:39to render the GPS readings useless.
17:42Within hours, the GPS readings
17:44were inaccurate by tens of miles.
17:46They had inadvertently proven Einstein's theories right.
17:50But what exactly are those theories?
17:52Well, Einstein's theory of special relativity
17:55states that an object moving faster relative to another
17:58will experience time slower.
18:00The theory of general relativity, meanwhile,
18:03tells us that time runs faster for an object
18:05the further it is from a source of gravity.
18:09These two principles working together in space
18:10seemingly at opposites don't quite cancel out,
18:13and general relativity tends to win,
18:16as far as things orbiting the Earth are concerned.
18:18This means objects orbiting Earth, Sergei included,
18:21experience time as moving faster than on Earth.
18:25This meant that upon his return,
18:27Sergei was technically 0.02 seconds older
18:30than he would have been had he remained on Earth.
18:33It also means that all GPS satellites
18:35require compensation systems
18:36to account for the effects of time dilation
18:38in order to function.
18:40Ha!
18:41And you thought an astronaut being stuck in space
18:42was going to be the weirdest thing you learned today.
18:46Reach for the stars.
18:48You might think that 311 days time traveling in space
18:51would be enough for a lifetime,
18:53but Sergei wasn't finished.
18:55He continued his celestial career as a cosmonaut
18:57and was back above the sky
18:59just under two years after returning home.
19:02In fact, Sergei took part in a further four missions
19:04between 1994 and 2005,
19:07and made space history books again on November 2nd, 2000,
19:11when he was part of the crew who embarked
19:12on the first long-duration expedition
19:14to the International Space Station.
19:17Overall, through his spacefaring career,
19:19Sergei logged a whopping 803 days,
19:22nine hours, and 39 minutes in space,
19:25spanning across 17 years.
19:27In 2005, he capped off his spaceflight days
19:30as the commander for the 11th expedition
19:32to the International Space Station.
19:35Sergei later reflected on his time in space,
19:37claiming that everyone who has been up there
19:39gains a global perspective,
19:41and issues revolving around differences between nations
19:44begin to seem absurd.
19:45After all, from space, we're all just tiny,
19:48relatively insignificant beings on our pale blue dot,
19:51nestled among the stars.
19:53With the vast expanse of nature of the universe
19:55being enough to make your head spin,
19:57there's only one thing for sure,
19:59Sergei's story is truly out of this world.
20:04How would you pass the time
20:05if you were stuck in space as long as Sergei?
20:07Would you take the chance to head up there
20:09if you had to live through what he did?
20:11Let me know in the comments down below,
20:13and thanks for watching.