Departure into space. Russia can send a crew of two Fedor robots into space. Luke Skywalker's lightsaber

And they were faced with the fact that the ranks of space agency researchers are not filled with bores at all, but quite poetic, romantic and witty people. This conclusion can be drawn at least from the list of what scientists have managed to launch into space over the past 50 years of its research. 10 of the most unusual, amusing and strange things from it - in the material below.

space graveyard

Few people think that in space- in near-Earth and lunar orbits - there are many remains of dead people. Space burials have been gaining popularity over the past 20 years, and at the moment more than 600 samples of ashes have already left our planet. Among them are many remains of celebrities and prominent personalities. For example, the ashes of the American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who was the first to discover Pluto, plow the expanses of space on the New Horizons automatic interplanetary station, launched to that same Pluto in 2006.

Parts of the remains of three earthlings are also “buried” in space involved in the creation of the sci-fi media franchise Star Trek, including Gene Roddenberry, who initiated the epic, as well as James Doohan and Majel Barret, who played the roles of Montgomery Scott and Kristin Chapel.

The most famous personalities buried in orbit include Timothy Leary, an American writer, psychologist, and campaigner for research on psychedelic drugs.

As a rule, the ashes of the dead are sent into space during scheduled rocket launches in small capsules, the size of lipstick. Several companies are involved in organizing such symbolic funerals. Not so long ago, a former NASA specialist launched his own project Elysium Space, which offered affordable prices: the company takes a little less than two thousand dollars for such an unusual burial ritual. Relatives are even given the opportunity to track the location of the remains using a mobile application.

color chart

created by Damien Hirst

In 2003, together with the Beagle-2 lander Damien Hirst's work was sent. This time, the object, created by an English artist, received a purely utilitarian purpose - an irregularly shaped 26-gram metal plate with multi-colored circles was to be used as a color chart for calibrating a camera, microscope and spectrometer. This was the first time that a piece of contemporary art was not only launched into space, but also ended up on the surface of another planet - Mars.

It was assumed that the device will work on the surface of the Red Planet for about 180 days with a possible extension of the mission. The landing, which took place on December 25, 2003, seemed to be successful, but the device did not get in touch, and the further fate of this Hirst masterpiece is unknown.

lightsaber
Luke Skywalker

October 23, 2007 during the scheduled launch of the shuttle Discovery the necessary equipment for the installation of node number two was delivered to the ISS (Harmony), as well as a team of seven astronauts. Probably, in order to "may the Force be with the crew", in addition to the scientific cargo, the shuttle took into space the original laser sword of Luke Skywalker, which actor Mark Hamill used in the battle against Darth Vader. Thus, NASA decided to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Star Wars film epic.

"It may not go to one galaxy far, far away, but it's still a six-million-mile journey, and it's pretty cool," said NASA's Doug Mattis. The artifact returned safely from space, and the sword can currently be seen in the collection of the Lyndon Johnson Space Center.

figurine
Buzz Lightyear

"The history of toys"

Buzz Lightyear, cartoon toy astronaut "The history of toys", went into space in 2008 with the STS-124 mission. He "lived" on the International Space Station for over 450 days. Upon returning to Earth on September 11, 2009, the figurine led the parade at Walt Disney World along with Buzz Aldrin, the second person to set foot on the moon. (after mission commander Neil Armstrong).

Naturally, the toy ended up in space for a reason. Buzz Lightyear's journey was timed to coincide with the opening of Toy Story Mania rides! at Disney World and Disneyland. The astronauts, in turn, justified the presence of a toy on board the station by demonstrating experiments with microgravity.

Students and schoolchildren had to describe how the figurine behaves on Earth and predict how it will behave in microgravity. They could compare their predictions with reality by watching a video filmed by the astronauts.

Messages to extraterrestrial civilizations

Curious messages were left on board both Voyager and Voyager 1 for extraterrestrial civilizations, although the probability that someday they will find the addressee is extremely small - Voyager 1 can approach the star Gliese 445 only after 40 thousand years. From the gold plates, you can roughly understand what life on Earth is like. The most famous of them contains an image of a naked man and woman. (the man raises his hand in greeting) surrounded by a schematic representation of the solar system, a spacecraft and explanatory signs. The image, however, caused some concern in the community, as many considered it pornographic.

Also in the package was a record with the sounds of the Earth (All of them can be heard on the NASA website) and instructions for use, simple arithmetic equations, photographs of other planets, a diagram of human reproduction and DNA. Other items of interest included a photograph of people biting, licking food and drinking water, an x-ray image photograph, a diagram of evolution (from fish to man) and representatives of different races for routine activities.

Family portrait

Photo of the astronaut's family
Duke from planet Earth

Charles Duke in 1972 became the youngest astronaut who have been to the moon. But it wasn’t enough for him that he walked on its surface as part of the Apollo 16 expedition, he decided to take a portrait of his family with him to the Earth’s satellite - with his wife Dottie and sons Charles and Tom, and leave this souvenir there forever. To let everyone know about his act, he captured a photograph thrown on a rocky landscape on his Hasselblad. The astronaut tentatively signed it: “This is the family of astronaut Duke from planet Earth. Landing on the moon in April 1972.

The list of personal items that the astronauts took with them to the Moon included more exotic items, such as a wooden fragment of the left propeller and a piece of fabric from the upper left wing of the Wright Brothers Flyer. Neil Armstrong took them with him. Aldrin, at the request of his father, took with him the autobiography of one of the pioneers of rocketry Robert Goddard (it was the first book to visit the moon) and the chalice, which became the first vessel for communion in space.

Lego figures

The Juno spacecraft, which NASA plans to reach Jupiter in 2016, has an unusual cargo on board: three LEGO minifigures depicting Galileo Galilei and the Roman gods Jupiter and Juno.
NASA specialists, who, as it turned out, love the designers as much as we do, turned to LEGO, and they, in turn, did not spare $15,000 for the production of special figures.

Toys are not made of plastic, but of aluminum, to withstand extreme conditions and large temperature fluctuations. Each character was not chosen by chance: Galileo was the first to use a telescope to observe celestial bodies, and with his help he discovered the four moons of Jupiter in 1610. The other two figurines refer to Greek and Roman mythology and the names of the destination planet and the space probe itself. The fact is that, according to legend, the god Jupiter hid his pranks behind a curtain of clouds, but his wife, the goddess Juno (English Juno), was able to see the true nature of Jupiter through these clouds. The figurine of Juno holds a magnifying glass in her hands, and the figurine of Jupiter holds a lightning bolt.

In addition to the figurines, the probe also has a plaque provided by the Italian Space Agency. It depicts Galileo himself, as well as an inscription made by him in January 1610, when he first observed the moons of Jupiter.

Teddy Bear Boris

A toy that helps to determine when the crew enters zero gravity

Russian cosmonauts are known to be very superstitious, and in many photographs with the domestic crew of space missions, you can see one strange mascot - a small toy bear. Nicknamed "Boris" by the cosmonauts, the teddy bear, suspended from a rope between the camera and the crew, allows ground controllers to tell better than any other instrument when the crew enters zero gravity. The plush toy can be seen in the video from the launch of space tourist Charles Simonyi to the space station in 2007. (It is better to skip the video 2 minutes ahead).

rocket launch video Soyuz TMA-10

Artifact English settlers in Jamestown

Around 1611, one of the English ships crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a few months and headed for Jamestown, the first British settlement on the territory of the modern United States, founded several years earlier. The luggage boxes of these desperate people looking for a better life in the New World were marked with metal plates Yames Towne. One of those tablets was discovered by archaeologists at the bottom of a well.

in 2006 year. Already in June 2007, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the NASA space shuttle Atlantis launched this piece of lead into low Earth orbit, after which it crossed the Atlantic Ocean, this time in just a few minutes. The tablet was returned to Earth at the Archaearium Museum, which contains many artifacts belonging to the first Americans of Jamestown.

Balls and golf club

Alan Shepard - the first and, in all likelihood, the only person to play golf on the moon

The first American astronomer Alan Shepard took balls and a club with him into space- he is the first and, in all likelihood, the only person who played golf on the moon. As NASA explains, in this way he not only had fun, but also made a significant contribution to science - the ball's flight path clearly demonstrated how much weaker gravity is on the Moon. Video footage of the experiment has also been preserved.

Shepard himself recalled that the ball flew "miles and miles" however, theoretical astrophysicist Ethan Siegel slightly clarified the astronaut's statement. In his opinion, it is most likely that the ball spent 70 seconds in flight and flew four kilometers, which was almost eight times the earth record existing at that time.

cover image via courtesy The Lego Group photos via Celestis & beagle2.com

The idea to inform our extraterrestrial brothers in mind about oneself visited mankind several centuries ago. In the first half of the 19th century, the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss proposed to cut a triangle with sides of 15 km in the taiga and sow it with wheat. Aliens should have noticed this and thus guessed that there is intelligent life on Earth. Gauss's plan was not put into practice, since the area of ​​the triangle proposed by him could be correlated with the size of some small state, for example Ireland, and there were no people willing to invest in the project.

Gauss was echoed by the Austrian astronomer Joseph von Littrow, who believed that life exists on the moon. He intended to attract the attention of the Selenites with the help of a giant trench in the Sahara desert. He intended to fill it with kerosene and set it on fire at night. It took 5 million cubic meters of gasoline to fill one kilometer of the trench. This, as in the first case, made the project unfeasible.

In 1869, the French poet Charles Crow proposed using a giant mirror to collect the sun's rays and direct them towards Mars. Crowe spent most of his life trying to get officials to implement his idea.

"World. Lenin. USSR"

The first message was sent on November 19, 1962 from the center of deep space communication in Evpatoria. It consisted of three words “Peace. Lenin. USSR". Formally, this was a test of equipment, but it seemed boring to scientists to send just signals, so a researcher at the IRE RAS suggested sending a romantic “Mir. Lenin. USSR" in Morse code.

The signal was successfully reflected from Venus and returned to Earth, but some of the information went into space and went to the constellation Libra (which contains three planets similar in structure to the Earth). So perhaps many light years from now we will get an alien “Uh, what?” response.

Message from Arecibo

The next message was sent in 1964 from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico (for which it got its name) to the constellation in the Hercules cluster. The authors of the message, Francis Drake (by the way, the author of the famous equation that allows you to calculate the number of planets in the Universe) and Carl Sagan (astronomer, exobiologist and the most famous popularizer of science in the West, such as Academician Kapitsa) encoded in it data on biochemistry, DNA structure, population Earth, the solar system and the Arecibo telescope itself. The message will reach potential recipients in 25 thousand years. And it will take the same amount of time to respond.

In 2001, in Hampshire (England), signs appeared on the fields repeating the message of Arecibo, only instead of a human figure, a humanoid with a large head (such as it is usually depicted in comics) was depicted. The authors of the Arecibo message said that the message in the margins is a clear fake, because everyone knows that any alien with even the slightest respect for himself will not leave messages in wheat, but will use the radio.

Message on Pioneer

Carl Sagan was the author of another message. In 1972 and 1973, anodized aluminum plates with a schematic representation of a man and a woman were sent aboard Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. Following this, Sagan was criticized for sending "obscenity" into space. We will be able to find out what aliens think about this in at least two million years, when the Pioneer reaches its destination - the brightest star of Taurus - Aldebaran.

Message on Voyager

In order to somehow smooth out the awkwardness from indecent pictures, in 1977 another message was sent into space - two gilded records, a phonograph, a needle for playing them, and instructions. If it happened today, we would have to add another user agreement, at the end of which the alien mind would have to put a tick.

The records contained Eastern and Western classical music (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky), dance music (Chuck Berry and Louis Armstrong). The disc also contains Georgian choral singing, ancient Chinese music and the singing of the peoples of New Guinea. Also, alien music lovers will hear the sounds of human speech and what you can find in the "Sounds of Nature" section: birdsong, the sound of the ocean, etc.

MOSCOW, July 20 - RIA Novosti. A team of two Fedor robots is proposed to be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) in an unmanned Soyuz spacecraft in August 2019, a source in the rocket and space industry told RIA Novosti.

Earlier it was reported that Fedor will be the first to fly on the new Federation spacecraft being developed in Russia. Moreover, it is expected that the robot will take part in all three test flights of the new ship - a test in 2022, with an automatic docking to the ISS in 2023, and with astronauts on board in 2024. "Fedor" was developed by the Foundation for Advanced Study together with the NPO "Android Technology" by order of the Ministry of Emergency Situations as a rescue robot. However, in the future, Roskosmos and Rosatom became interested in him.

"The idea is being considered to use the launch of the Soyuz unmanned spacecraft next year for a test flight of the Fedora robot into space. Moreover, it is proposed to fly one or two robots at once," the agency's interlocutor said.

Earlier, the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation announced that in August 2019 it would launch an uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft into orbit, which would test new systems and deliver cargo to the International Space Station. The launch will be carried out on a Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle. Now the ship is at the stage of assembling compartments. The results of its flight can be used in the production of a new Soyuz GVK space transport cargo vehicle, which should be ready by 2022. At the moment, only American Dragon transport ships are able to return cargo from orbit. Russian supply ships of the Progress series are sunk in the ocean after being deorbited.

According to the interlocutor, the flight of one or two Fedorovs at once on an unmanned Soyuz is considered as an opportunity to test the robot before it is sent into space on the Federation ship. In this case, the androids will not take part in the management of the ship, but will become passengers. It is proposed that they will be able, as announcers, to comment on what is happening in flight according to pre-set algorithms, for example, the magnitude of overloads, the temperature regime inside the ship.

According to the interlocutor, the idea found preliminary approval in the leadership of Roskosmos and received the unofficial name "cyber crew". It was named so because robots will fly to the ISS for the first time as crew members, and not as cargo in the transport compartment. So, for example, it was with American, Japanese and European robots. According to the interlocutor of the agency, the industry leadership considers this idea a good PR move, which should show the ability of Roskosmos to quickly achieve breakthroughs in astronautics.

NPO Androidnaya Tekhnika has not yet commented on this information. The Energia Rocket and Space Corporation (the developer of the Federation ship and the Soyuz manufacturer) declined to comment. The Foundation for Advanced Study was unable to provide a prompt comment. Roskosmos also failed to get an explanation.

robot astronaut

The creation of Fedor began in 2014 as part of the Spasatel Foundation's project. Then the android was called "Avatar". The basis for its creation were taken robots produced by NPO Androidnaya Tekhnika SAR-400 and SAR-401, offered by the enterprise, including Roscosmos and the Cosmonaut Training Center.

Android received its new name in 2015 from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. Later, a decoding of the name was also invented, turning it into an abbreviation - Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research - The final experimental demonstration object of research. The robot is designed to replace a person in places of increased risk - for example, in rescue operations, in space. At the moment, he can autonomously shoot with two hands, drive a car, sit on the splits, work with a drill, move up the stairs and overcome obstacles. In addition, the robot can be controlled remotely using a special suit worn by the operator. In this mode, Fedor, like an avatar, repeats the actions of a person.

In 2016, it became known that Fedor would fly into space on the Federation ship. He will sit in the co-pilot's seat, but will not steer the ship. In the future, it is proposed to use it to assist astronauts during work in outer space. To do this, it is planned to install special batteries on the outer surface of the station, with the help of which it will be recharged. In the long term, the android should participate in the flyby of the moon on the Federation ship. After it circles the Moon and returns to Earth, Fedor will unfasten its belts on its own, open the exit hatch and leave the descent module.

The Dragon transport vehicle, an unmanned spacecraft from SpaceX, arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) last week with 5,000 pounds of fresh cargo. This mission is an example of the beginning of a new era for NASA - since 2011, the function of transporting provisions and cargo to the ISS, as well as from it to Earth, has been carried out by the private sector. This decision was made primarily because of the high cost of sending NASA shuttles to the ISS, which have now been replaced by cheaper launch vehicles from private companies.

Whether transportation has actually become cheaper with the switch to private company launchers, however, remains in question. To find out, Tech Insider spoke to payload specialist and space station engineer Ravi Margasahayam.

In 2008, NASA signed contracts with SpaceX and its competitor, aerocomic company Orbital Sciences, for $1.6 billion for 12 launches and $1.9 billion for 8 rocket launches, respectively. And while new missions are hundreds of millions of dollars cheaper than launching a space shuttle, the cost of getting into space hasn't come down.

"My price per pound went up with these rockets," Margasahayam told Tech Insider. "It would have been much lower on the shuttle."

He points out that although the space shuttles were more expensive, at around $500 million per launch (and according to some sources, even more), each mission carried about 50,000 pounds (about 22,600 kg) and seven astronauts. That is, the transportation of one pound of cargo (almost 0.5 kg) cost approximately $ 10,000.

If we do the same calculation with NASA's cheapest carrier at the moment, SpaceX, which costs $133 million per rocket to launch and has a last mission capacity of 5,000 pounds, each pound is valued at about $27,000.

However, SpaceX claims that the Dragon spacecraft, launched from a Falcon 9 booster, can carry 7,300 pounds (more than 3,000 kg) - both to the ISS and back to Earth. So if Dragon were fully loaded at launch and on return, the cost per pound would be only $9,100.

Bottle of water: $9,100 to $27,000

A half-liter bottle of water weighs just about one pound, so it fits the basic cost of sending a cargo into space - from $9,100 to $27,000.

NASA has long decided that it's pretty stupid to send new water every time, given how much of it is in the human body. Therefore, on board the ISS, astronauts drink recycled water from their own condensation, sweat, and urine.

70 mice: at least $470,000

Mice are quite light, weighing only about 300-400 grams, that is, the cost of delivering one mouse to the ISS ranges from $ 6,825 to $ 20,250. However, one mouse is clearly not enough for research in space, therefore, to study the biological effect on the body in space, including muscle atrophy and the aging process, one has to pay between $470,925 and $1.4 million for 70 rodents.

Bagpipes: $162,000

And there are quite a few other instruments being sent to the astronauts, including harmonicas, a guitar, and at least one saxophone.

The weight of a bagpipe is highly dependent on materials and construction, but astronaut Kjell Lindgren appears to be a pretty serious performer, strong enough to hold a full-sized instrument.

It can be assumed that he was worried about the cost of transportation and therefore chose a relatively light bagpipe - 6 pounds, 2 pounds less than the average 8-pound bagpipe.

So the cost could be anywhere from $54,600 to $16,2000, but given how much it means to astronauts who miss their life on Earth, and the YouTube video of him playing, it's worth it.

Coffee machine: possibly over $1 million

Once astronauts used only freeze-dried coffee, which they had to dilute with water that did not reach the boiling point, as a result, coffee caused a lot of complaints among astronauts.

However, in 2015, the ISSpresso coffee machine arrived on the ISS, produced exclusively by an Italian collaboration between Argotec software companies, coffee maker Lavazza, and the Italian Space Agency.

The machine weighs 44 pounds (almost 20 kg), costs from $400,400, and its delivery to the ISS cost $1.2 million.

Greenhouse: over $145,000

In 2015, astronauts aboard the ISS received an unusual reason to rejoice: real greens grown in outer space.

Astronauts study the effects of microgravity (a state of weightlessness) on plants. Given that someday people plan to go to Mars, knowing how to grow vegetables in otherworldly conditions will be extremely important.

A 16 pound greenhouse is about $145,600 to $432,000 in shipping costs from Earth.

Gorilla costume: at least $116,000

A video of astronaut Scott Kelly dressed as a gorilla aboard the ISS has gone viral on the internet.

Each astronaut is allocated a certain amount of special cargo on board the launch vehicles delivering to the ISS. Most often, they receive gifts from home - cards, gifts, even birthday cakes. However, Scott Kelly's twin brother, who is also an astronaut, Mike Kelly (Mike Kelly) sent him such a gorilla suit.

This outfit on Amazon weighs 4.3 pounds, which means that the price for its delivery was about $ 116,000 - $ 391,000.

Lemons: over $2,000 each

Astronaut Scott Kelly, during his year-long stay in space, studied the effect of such conditions (sometimes extremely unpleasant) on his body.

It's not easy to spend that much time indoors, and at some point NASA sent some fresh lemons to the ISS to add some variety to life on board the station, and Kelly juggled them in another video about the science of metabolism in space.

Since the average lemon weighs about 3.5 ounces (nearly 100 grams), the cost of sending them into space would have been between $2,000 and $5,900 each.

Baby squid: less than $5

A living, writhing squid that was needed for yet another research project: astronauts are using it to study the relationship between animals and beneficial bacteria. Sepiolids are cephalopods that are symbiotically related to certain bacteria. Bacteria live in the body of the squid, and he uses them to create backlight underwater.

A baby squid weighs less than a hundredth of an ounce. Not counting test tubes, sending each squid into space costs between $1.60 and $4.80.

By earthly standards, such expenses may seem unnecessary and meaningless to us, but Margasahayam argues that it is worth it.

The experiments carried out on the space station have great potential to help us understand the human body and the future of space travel. Space programs like NASA have led to major technological developments that we use every day on Earth.

"NASA is the pinnacle of American ingenuity and technology," said Margasahayam. He also noticed that NASA's budget is actually extremely small compared to other US agencies.

Delivering cargo to the ISS can be extremely expensive, but the process promotes international cooperation, scientific progress and innovation.

If earthlings had a chance to send a message to other inhabitants of outer space, what would they write? What would you say about life on Earth? How would you explain who we are? These are not hypothetical questions. In the summer of 2014 humanity will have a chance to send a message to distant worlds.

NASA specialists have agreed to download digital messages and send them into interstellar space using the New Horizons spacecraft.

Jon Lomberg and Albert Yu-Min Lin, leaders of the new New Horizons Message Initiative, announced the news at a festival in Washington DC.

Which messages will go into space will be determined later depending on the overall picture that participants from all over the planet will form. Messages will begin broadcasting some time after New Horizons circles Pluto in 2015 and sends data collected during the flight to Earth (this will take about another year, since the signal will be very long).

If all goes according to plan, New Horizons will be the fifth man-made object to cross the edge of the solar system. Its predecessors were Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, as well as Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. All vehicles carried messages for aliens that they could theoretically encounter during their journey. So, aluminum plates with symbolic information about a person, the Earth and its location were fixed on board the Pioneers, and the Voyagers sent into space a gold information plate packed in an aluminum case with a recording of sound and video signals.

Recall that the launch of the New Horizons probe was carried out on January 19, 2006, and in 2007 the device already flew past Jupiter.

Lomberg, who worked with Carl Sagan on the Voyager gold record in 1977, came up with the new idea. He created a website with a petition to NASA, which by February 2014 was signed by 10,000 people from more than 140 countries. According to Lomberg, people are much more interested in being participants in such significant events than just witnesses.

Lomberg plans to send a global self-portrait into space. Any earthling will be able to upload potential content (images, sounds or data in any other format). There will also be a vote, during which it will be determined which messages will go on a trip.

Any person who has access to the Internet will be able to participate in the project, although the project team also plans to study the opinions of groups of people who do not have access to the Web. This will help to compile the most accurate statistics.

The "self-portrait" of our planet will take about 100 MB of memory and will be transferred to the onboard computer of the spacecraft. True, the data can only be sent after the New Horizons probe frees up its memory by sending information about Pluto to Earth in 2015.

By the way, the download of the message may be delayed if the device flies past a space object in the Kuiper belt. In this case, you will have to collect data about him, and the scientific component of the mission is still a priority.

What will happen next with the device and whether it will eventually deliver information to aliens, of course, is unknown. Theoretically, it will be somewhere in outer space and maybe even. However, cosmic radiation could damage New Horizons' electronic memory. In this case, the collected messages will not be as durable as the messages attached to the Voyagers and Pioneers.

However, the likelihood that the messages will ever find their addressees is generally extremely small. Even if aliens really exist, there is no guarantee that they will see something the size of a piano in the sky, then be able to parse the message, and even gain any access to the on-board computer of the device. In addition, even if the inhabitants of extraterrestrial civilizations manage to get our messages out of the memory of the probe, there is even less chance that they will be able to understand them.

Be that as it may, hope dies last. And, most likely, a considerable number of earthlings will take part in the New Horizons Message Initiative project.