Cosmonautics Day in Russia

This is the latest in a series of columns from new Fayette County resident Julia Thiessen, who grew up in Russia.

On April 12, 1961, the first human being was launched into space. He spent 108 minutes in orbit and his name was Yury Gagarin of Russia. Russia celebrated the 65th anniversary of the launch this year. It is a professional holiday for our family since my husband and I worked in the space industry. My husband worked for NASAfor over 20 years and I worked as a NASA contractor for over 10 years. We never flew to space, but we helped in our respective areas to get astronauts to orbit.

I know it has always been competition between our two countries, but at the end of the day we are all citizens of planet Earth. That was the message I heard from US astronauts since I was working with them more and not the Russian cosmonauts. When I started working for NASA as a contractor in 2014, I was a newbie to the space industry. I did not realize at the time the only crewed vehicle going to the International Space Station was the Russian Soyuz with NASA astronauts as part of the crew since the Space Shuttle had been retired in 2011. Part of my tasks as a contractor involved the logistics of assisting NASA launch personnel in getting to/from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, where the Soyuz was launched. There were times where this involved launch groups of over 100 people all going to work and support the Soyuz launch. These were exciting times for me. SpaceX is also flying to the International Space Station and I think it is pretty cool. There are still international crews onboard both launch vehicles: Russians fly on SpaceX, Americans fly on Soyuz. For me, it demonstrates the best cooperation between our nations. I think it is important to keep the cooperation going strong because we operate in space much better with one another than without. The launch of the rocket (and it doesn’t matter if it is a US or Russian vehicle) brings the same feelings for me - I have a lump in my throat like I’m about to cry and I almost stop breathing as I watch the brave astronauts/cosmonaut make it to orbit. As somebody once said; you are sitting on this large container fully fueled which is akin to a large bomb. For me it is just scary beyond description, but the crews go about launch with calm. Landing is equally emotional for me.

For many years I would try to describe astronauts to my Russian friends and I couldn’t say much more than they are different as they seem to worry about little problems on this planet much differently than you and me. A couple of days ago, Artemis II landed off the California coast after the crew had circled around the Moon, after a 50+ years pause; and the landing happened less than a day before Cosmonautics Day in Russa. WOW. I believe this is a huge step for our planet. An international crew with three Americans and one Canadian made it possible again to go beyond low Earth orbit to the Moon. We as citizens of Earth have much more to explore together and much more to see.

Happy Cosmonautics Day!