“Cosmonautics: yesterday, today, tomorrow” - an online meeting with astronaut Fedor Yurchikhin

Today, from 18 to 19 hours Moscow time, a meeting was held with astronaut Fedor Yurchikhin.

• “The first pancake” came out, alas, lumpy in some places - my broadcast turned off in about the fifth minute, for about twenty minutes. And the questions echoed. But these are fixable problems, I hope that in the future it will be better.
• They think little of this, but now not young military pilots no older than 25 years go to astronauts, but, on the contrary, experienced specialists, engineers, scientists, doctors, and they come to astronautics after 30 years. Yurchikhin himself, for example, was recruited to astronauts at 39 years old, and made his first flight at 43 years old.
• A classic bike about a space pen as an example, how some bother, and others do not bother. Fisher spent money on a pen, not NASA, sources on the Internet insist on it, but, nevertheless, a lot of money was spent.
• A very interesting comparison: a spaceship is a submarine that floats at a depth of 10 m, but "vice versa".
• An interesting story about photographing in space, how it differs from terrestrial photographing.
• Apology of manned astronautics and a first-hand description of working with a robonaut.
• A short and clear answer is what is required for further exploration of space by man. About the "Plasma Crystal" on Habré there is a post .
• Fedor Nikolayevich spoke very sharply about the Mars One program - in his opinion, a reasonable person would not fly to Mars in one direction, because this makes no sense. A colony of several tens of people, even if it can be created, cannot exist autonomously - tens of thousands of people are needed.
• Again, the question of reusable vehicles and their profitability comes up, the question of profit from space technology.
• Little is said about the training of astronauts and methods of getting used to fear.
• Quote: “We are going into space as patriots of our countries, and we are returning as patriots of the Earth.”
• At 42 minutes, the stream disappears, apparently, they asked about the film "Gravity". Fedor Nikolayevich strongly criticized the film because of technical inaccuracies and advised him to watch Apollo 13. Of course, the perception of the film is a matter of taste, I liked Gravity, but I join the advice to watch Apollo 13. Very well shown work on Earth and in space, the fight against the accident, a real drama.
• Amused the question about the instructions on actions when meeting with aliens. The answer smoothly flowed into the philosophical question of our rationality.
• Aaitishikov will appreciate the story about computers and operating systems on the ISS.
• But Fedor Nikolaevich spoke very warmly about space tourists. To be honest, after such a story, I began to think better of them.
• An interesting description is the perception of the ISS segments by astronauts and the rules of cultural recreation.

I hope that such broadcasts will continue in the future.
And a small story - I will remember for a long time how the announcer of NASA-TV, commenting on the VCD in August 2013, clearly read the last name Yurchikhin as Your Chicken. He probably used mnemonics to pronounce this complex Russian surname ...