Star
City Limits
There’s a
lot to marvel at in the belly of
the cosmonautic beast.
by Andrew Biliter
The
hydrostation at Zvezdny Gorodok
doesn’t usually impress
foreigners. Equipment appears
carelessly strewn over the
grayish, mildewed tile around
the pool. Men with radios sit
chatting. Faded inspirational
posters grace the walls of the
observation deck. It looks a lot
like a public swimming pool that
hasn’t been remodeled since the
1970s. Technically, that's what
it is. Except this swimming pool
has a spaceship in it.
Zvezdny Gorodok, or “Star City,”
is the beating heart of Russia’s
space program. Every cosmonaut,
starting with Yury Gagarin
himself, has lived and trained
in this secluded community
northeast of Moscow. And while
the hydrostation may not look
like much from above, below the
water, prospective space
travelers get their first taste
of weightlessness. In the
hulking centrifuge next door,
trainees still prepare for the
severe G-forces experienced
during launch and re-entry.
Tour guides here admit that
Western journalists are often a
bit shocked by the condition of
the facilities. They look at the
hydrostation, the ancient museum
exhibits, the bleak, stuffy
hallways, and hurry back to
their hotels to write a eulogy
for the once-mighty Russian
space program. This reaction is
partly forgivable; the décor
suggests that the last person to
cut Star City a check probably
worked for Brezhnev. Another
part of it, however, comes from
sheer prejudice. In the U.S.,
there is a general preconception
that things relating to
space—from the rockets to the
spacesuits to the vacuum-sealed
ice cream—should be white.
Pristine. That’s how we know
they are from “the future,” and
thus space-worthy. We are not
ready for the Soviet vision of
the future, expressed in Star
City’s flashy, metallic
“Zvezdny” sign; its turquoise
centrifuge; or its drum-shaped
yellow buildings with zigzagging
brick facades.
We
also have differing philosophies
about technology. In the U.S.,
the decrepit space station Mir,
shedding bits and pieces toward
the end of its 15-year run, was
a punchline. At Star City, where
a full-scale model of the
station takes up half the
museum, Mir’s longevity is a
great source of pride. “It was
only designed to operate for
three years,” the tour guide
brags. “We mostly took it out of
service because it was competing
with the International Space
Station.” When it comes to
Russian aerospace technology,
the mantra begins “if it ain’t
broke…”
And for the most part, it ain’t.
Overall, cosmonauts have
launched more missions and
logged more hours in space than
their U.S. counterparts, and in
the history of the
Russian-Soviet program, only
four cosmonauts have (um,
officially) died in flight,
compared with 18 NASA
astronauts. So despite NASA’s
shinier facilities, the people
training in the green swimming
pool have a better chance of
survival.
Certainly, the whole place could
use a facelift. The equipment
they’re using isn’t getting any
younger, and some of the
buildings in the residential
sector look like the
khruschevkas (see page TK)
now slated for destruction in
Moscow’s suburbs. But if you’re
not a jaded journalist looking
for flaws or a Russian scientist
starving for a government grant,
Star City can be a fascinating
place. And for those with a keen
appreciation of kitsch, the
town’s cocktail of Soviet
dereliction and cosmic
memorabilia is nothing short of
nirvana.
Obsolete space capsules
blanketed in snow are arranged
in a neat row on the ground
outside the hydrostation. It’s
unclear why they’re placed at
the forest’s edge, or indeed why
they’re outside at all, but
there they are. Inside, things
are even more surreal. In one
room, astrophysicists sit
hunched over a massive blue
computer covered with dials and
gauges. If you didn’t know they
were monitoring the progress of
a real cosmonaut in a nearby
simulator, you’d think they were
playing an advanced version of
Pong on their tiny
screens. And it appears they
call each other on—you guessed
it—rotary telephones.
Then there’s the museum. “We
need to get rid of all this
stuff. It’s been here forever,”
the tour guide sighs.
Ironically, the supposedly
old-hat objects in the display
cases are often
indistinguishable from those in
the rest of the facility. In one
series of faded photos, 1980s
cosmonauts go camping.
Apparently, the thing to do when
your spaceship crash-lands in
the Russian taiga is build an
igloo, put on a cool jumpsuit,
and listen to the radio. There
are orange flares involved as
well.
If Star City ever does get
renovated, someone should first
call Wes Anderson and convince
him to film his next movie here.
The opening scene would have to
take place in the hydrostation:
a space-tourist-in-training
floats through the green light
toward the mock spaceship. A
team of divers hover around him
in a kind of underwater ballet,
documenting his every move with
their clunky cameras. Above
deck, a man wearing coke-bottle
glasses watches on a snowy
television screen. He whispers
directions into the divers’
earpieces between pulls on his
cigarette. And off to the side,
a cleaning lady briefly dips her
mop into the pool (an actual
sight reported by one visitor).
But the movie will never be
made. A Western filmmaker likely
wouldn’t be allowed in (Chris
Doyle came close, when scouting
locations for Sunshine),
and a Russian one wouldn’t find
the facilities remarkable. As is
the case with most of the
strange, beautiful things left
over from the Soviet era, it's
likely that Star City won't get
its proper due until it's gone.
Prox It
