Interview

Georgy GRECHKO

20 August 2009, 17:28

The capital of Tatarstan is hosting an international astronomy congress called AstroKazan 2009. The event has assembled prominent scientists and specialists from various parts of the Earth, as well as representatives from Unesco. Among them is Georgy Grechko, a cosmonaut, twice a Hero of the Soviet Union. Before the forum’s opening, Mr Grechko kindly agreed to answer questions from the Tatarstan media.

Georgy Grechko was born on 25 May 1931 in Saint-Petersburg, formerly Leningrad, to a family of a servant. He spent his childhood and school years there. While in senior high school, he developed a liking for reading books about interplanetary journeys and later conceived a passion for the idea of interplanetary flights itself. Upon graduation from the Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute, Georgy Grechko was assigned to the Korolev design bureau, where he displayed his talent and ambition. He led important works related to calculating flight dynamics for space ships. One and a half years later he successfully insisted on being transferred to the ballistic group and later to the group responsible for fuelling and preparation for launch of space rockets at the Baikonur cosmodrome. He took part in the launch of the Earth’s first artificial satellite.

Georgy Grechko has made 3 space flights. In total, he has spent 134 days 21 hours 32 minutes and 52 seconds flying. On 20 December 1977, he and Yuri Romanenko made a spacewalk, during which they examined and assessed the condition of one of the station’s docking units.

Q: Georgy Mikhailovich, is a cosmonaut able to help resolve issues the Earth is facing?
A: So it becomes clear, one needs to at least for one hour, better yet for one day, for 24 hours, switch off all the devices working in the outer space – communication will then be interrupted and ships will rush about the seas without navigation. Noone will be able to watch football matches broadcast in various countries and people will then realise that theirs is a quite interesting life due to the existence of cosmonautics.

A: Can you see the problems the Earth is facing from above?
Q: Unfortunately, you can. The Earth is beautiful but it is very vulnerable. When you travel from Moscow, the Earth seems big but when you go around the entire planet in an hour and a half, you can see it is small. You can see rivers and lakes being contaminated and forests cut, the Earth’s lungs.

Q: What do you think about space tourism?
A: My point of view is it is not a business for a king. So, to each their own. The state should work with scientists, specialists in the space, while private individuals may take there whoever they like. Your every whim for your money, as they say.

Q: There is a lot of information on the Internet these days that Americans have never been to the Moon. What do you think of it?
A: You know, it would be my poorly disguised pleasure to confirm they have never travelled to the Moon but they have offered no chance. They have been to the Moon. How did the rumours arise? I should say I was the first official head of a postal office in the space. During a flight, I was instructed to put a space postmark on envelopes destined for world museums. I did that but it was a difficult thing to do with zero gravity. You press on it and you rise upwards. So the postmark comes out blurred. You hit it but since your hand weighs nothing, it bounces off and hits again. So, I happened to visit one of the museums once and thought to myself, shall I go see my envelopes. They turned out to be perfectly marked. So, I am confident that what Americans shot badly, like their flag or footsteps, they finished off in Hollywood. But that does not mean they were not there. They have been there.

Q: Will we go to Mars soon?
A: I would like that. A flight to Mars will take place between the years twentieth and thirtieth. Although Americans say they will fly without us, Chinese say the same. I am sure the flight will be international, since even the training held at our Institute for Medical and Biological Problems, when a flight to Mars was simulated, was international. Our task is by that time to do what our leaders are talking about – to develop high technologies, as those who does something difficult better than others will be taken to the space. So far, we have lagged behind, doing simpler things worse than others, transiting crude oil and that is it. We need in practice, not in words, to make the best of nanotechnologies. We used to do everything better than Americans and Europeans but  they are now overtaking. So, if we want to take in the flight to Mars, we have to do something better than others, like we did.

Q: Georgy Mikhailovich, will we be able to bring back the times when our cosmos industry was the strongest in the world?
A: I am afraid we will not. We used to be ahead of America, while the other countries were not even somewhere to be seen. Now, China has practically outperformed us. Even Brazil spends more on cosmos than Russia does. So, I feel hurt for the power. But we love our country and hope for the best. Besides, you know we have a difficult economic situation. I would still like to hope there is a way out. Even two of them, one real and the other fantastic. The real one is that aliens come and solve everything for us. The fantastic one is that we solve everything ourselves.

Prepared by Lilia Markelova