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International Trailblazer

Season 1Episode 178Jan 15, 2021

Sergei Krikalev, cosmonaut and flight engineer of Expedition 1, the first long-duration mission to the International Space Station, recounts the 20th anniversary of this mission and a career of fostering international collaboration. HWHAP Episode 178.

International Trailblazer

International Trailblazer

If you’re fascinated by the idea of humans traveling through space and curious about how that all works, you’ve come to the right place.

“Houston We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center from Houston, Texas, home for NASA’s astronauts and Mission Control Center. Listen to the brightest minds of America’s space agency – astronauts, engineers, scientists and program leaders – discuss exciting topics in engineering, science and technology, sharing their personal stories and expertise on every aspect of human spaceflight. Learn more about how the work being done will help send humans forward to the Moon and on to Mars in the Artemis program.

On Episode 178, Sergei Krikalev, cosmonaut and flight engineer of Expedition 1, the first long-duration mission to the International Space Station, recounts the 20th anniversary of this mission and a career of fostering international collaboration. This episode was recorded on August 20th, 2020.

Houston, we have a podcast

Transcript

Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 178, “International Trailblazer.” I’m Gary Jordan and I’ll be your host today. On this podcast we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, and astronauts all to let you know the coolest information about what’s going on the world of human spaceflight. More than 20 years ago, on November 2, 2000, a crew of three spacefarers arrived at the International Space Station with the mission to bring the new orbital complex to life. We call these missions Expeditions and the International Space Station crew was Expedition 1. The trio was NASA’s William Shepherd, commander of Expedition 1, and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko, both seasoned veterans of long duration missions aboard the Russian Space Station Mir that was in orbit at the time. These three spent 136 days aboard the space station and set the course for what would be an unbroken streak of human presence in space. We often like to tout that if you’re, I guess at this point, younger than 20, you’ve never lived in a world where there haven’t been humans in space at any given point in your life. So, we had a chance to chat with Bill Shepherd, the commander of Expedition 1, about what it took to get to this point last year around the date of the anniversary. On this episode we’re bringing in a different perspective from Sergei Krikalev, a decorated cosmonaut who was instrumental in U.S. and Russian cooperation. He paved the path for cooperative space shuttle missions, and he was on both the first crewed visit and the first long-term expedition aboard the International Space Station itself. So, let’s learn more about how this international trailblazer helped to kick off 20 years of continuous human habitation on the space station. Here’s Sergei Krikalev. Enjoy.

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Host: Sergei Krikalev, thanks so much for coming on Houston We Have a Podcast after reaching 20 years of continuous human presence.

Sergei Krikalev: Thank you. It’s a good program and good moment. I remember every moment of our preparation and flight on Expedition 1.

Host: That’s right. Well, let’s start there Sergei. We’ve made it, 20 continuous years since you’ve entered the International Space Station. What are your first thoughts before we begin here, your first thoughts of reaching this milestone?

Sergei Krikalev: Actually, maybe I will correct you a little bit because small base of the station, we entered almost two years before, in 1998. The first two elements of the station where docked together and I would like it to be on shuttle flight STS-88 to be part of this mission when we docked those two elements of the station, we opened hatches and we did some maintenance of the station. So actually, for me the hatch opening was together with Bob Cabana, commander of STS-88, and we together entered through Node [1] first, and then to FGB [Zarya] to start the duration on the station. And my first thought was that station is really small, it was just very beginning. We just assembled those two elements of the station. But at that time, I was already assigned as a crew member of Expedition 1 and I know that we visited this station, we worked on this station for relatively short period of time shuttle, but I knew that next step would be longer duration flight on the station sometime later. So, at the end of the year 2000, we flew Expedition 1 from dock with service module [Zvezda] and start preparation on the station. And some [inaudible] work that station is empty because I used to fly Mir station and with time station filled with equipment, with spare gear, with airducts, everything. So, station became kind of busier place. But when we came to the station everything was empty; we had several [air] ducts stored there, and even table was not there. So, we flipped on lights and I remember myself thinking that for the first time, we flipping lights and probably now the flights would be on for a long, long period of time.

Host: So, you did understand then the gravity of what you were accomplishing for Expedition 1. You already mentioned that this was not the first time that you opened up the hatches to the International Space Station, you were there before on STS-88, entering at the same time as Bob Cabana. But, understanding the gravity of what you were doing on Expedition 1, essentially setting the stage for continuous human presence. At the time, did it strike you that you would essentially be turning on the lights for welcoming the crews for the next, I guess, right now 64 long duration expeditions?

Sergei Krikalev: Now, we never even thought, you know, how expedition was going to be counted, because there was period of time when one flight had two expeditions in one mission, because there was kind of overlapping one expedition over another. But I remember myself, that actually, every spaceflight is very exciting moment and a very important moment of your life or space program because every flight is significant to them. But after having this experience of joint missions, mission — joint missions from Mir with our international partners, joint mission on shuttle when I was participant of this mission, mission specialist from this mission, I knew that we were going to start something very exciting because we had very good team who build the station, to prepare this station for flight, who prepare cosmonauts and astronauts for flying on the station. So, we knew that it was the beginning of some very exciting program.

Host: You mentioned there was already a little groundwork here. You yourself were part of the first steps of this cooperation, what would lead up to the cooperation on the International Space Station, but you did spend a significant amount of time on Mir and you did mention some of your time on the space shuttle. First, talk about some of your time on Mir. You already mentioned that the International Space Station seemed a bit empty compared to Mir.

Sergei Krikalev: Actually, my first entry of the station, Mir station was during Expedition 4 on Mir, and at that time, record setting Expedition, Expedition 3, was flying the station and they were supposed to stay on the station for a year. That’s 366 days, leap year. So, a crew of Expedition 3 would leave there and we arrive as international Expedition, we came with French cosmonaut Jean-Loup Chrétien and we entered the station and I remember opposite feeling, how big is the station, with docks with spare parts, with food, with clothing. So, when we opened the hatch it was difficult to actually go through all this stuff to get to main module of the station at that time. And station was very small. It was also only built from two modules at that time. So, that was my first experience, it was very interesting, very exciting, and my first experience of international cooperation in space. But second flight was even more exciting because we also started the international expedition flight with British cosmonaut Helen Sharman. We were supposed to do several EVA and build big section outside of the station. So, it was a really exciting program for us as a cosmonaut. And we were supposed to finish this mission at the end of year 1991 as Expedition 9 on the station. But in the middle of the flight decisions were made for me. My partner come back home, but I stayed another mission on Mir station. So, I flew two expeditions in one flight, Expedition 9 and Expedition 10. And we came back almost 11 months after like in the spring of 1991.

Host: That’s right, you were in space for a long time, well over 300 days, 311 I think, was the count on that mission. What did you learn about what it takes to live and work in space for that long?

Sergei Krikalev: Actually, the flight was long, so we learned a lot of things. And for me, it was second flight. So, I found that experience for second flight is little different than first one, because when you fly first time, you usually fly with a more experienced crew member. But when you fly second time, usually you have unexperienced crew member with you, and you have more responsibility on orbit. That’s [inaudible] what we have an experienced crew member. That’s the first part. The second part that when I arrived to the station, station had two more modules docked to the station in compare with my first flight, and I found myself actually, on learning curve again. So, we need to — we learn everything on the ground, but still, we continue with learning process during flight. And, for my second flight, I had to kind of relearn some things because we have new hardware and new equipment, new setup, and it was interesting for me to compare how I learned new things for me and how my partner learned everything from scratch basically, because for Anatoly Artsebarsky, for him, it was first flight. We learned that with experience you get more seasoned, but again, every time you fly you have new stuff — new challenges and you do something different anyway, and for us it was very interesting set of EVAs. On that flight, on Expedition 9, we had six EVAs done in one flight. And actually, in second Expedition, I did another EVA. So, for that time it was seven EVA in one flight, and it was really challenging and really interesting. So, we did a lot of interesting experiments and usually sooner or later you face some problem and you realize that with some experience you can — troubleshoot the problems during flight and you — can do a lot of things yourself because in the beginning you rely more on your partner, you rely on the ground, but your experience, you became more and more self-sustainable, I would say. So, you’re able to face the problem and solve the problem even if nobody can help you. So, for me, it was an interesting experience. And also, talking about changing mindset, I would say, really, like in sports, I very open, for me at least, it reminds me how if a sportsman is, running five miles. And of course, when you run you try to do your best and you spend as much effort as possible to be able to do as much as possible but to be able to finish this distance. So basically, what I learned from my coach in sport that you should come to the final line with no extra things. So, you can — you spent all your capabilities during the meet. So, about the same approach I used for the flight. But when you realize that your distance is much longer, you have to change mindset and actually pace for your activity and especially to be able to finish longer distance. And it was really a change in mindset.

Host: Now, these are some critical lessons that even cosmonauts and astronauts today can learn from as we’re doing these continuing expeditions on the space station, these 160-day, 200-day, sometimes more than 300-day missions on the International Space station, you had that experience even before Expedition 1. Were you sharing some of these lessons, such as, as you said, stretching out your energy, where you’re sharing these lessons with your Expedition 1 crewmates?

Sergei Krikalev: Of course. And actually, I already mentioned it, that usually we combine the crew in such a way that we have a mixture of experience and not experience crew member. For Expedition 1, knowing that this mission is going to be critical, we had a lot of things that need to be done and need to be done on time. It needs to be done even if we have some malfunction [inaudible]. That’s why all our crew, Expedition 1, were only from already flown crew members. Shepherd flew several times on shuttle. His total flight time was maybe not so long, but he has good experience, he had good experience of flying to space and solving the problem. Yuri Gidzenko had long duration flights behind him. I had actually two long duration flights and two short duration flights on shuttle. So, our crew was very experienced and the reason why we get together for this mission was because all of us had enough experience. And of course, we share these experiences together.

Host: Now, one experience on your end that I think is fascinating, you already mentioned your short duration missions on shuttle.

Sergei Krikalev: Right.

Host: It was, at least for STS-60 a first, a cosmonaut on a shuttle mission, and STS-88, this is the one where you actually visited the International Space Station.

Sergei Krikalev: And assembled.

Host: And assembled, that’s right.

Sergei Krikalev: To assemble the station, not only visit.

Host: So, your impressions working with Americans and setting the stage for what would be continuing cooperation?

Sergei Krikalev: Actually, it was very interesting experience for me because, as you already know, I had the experience of Expedition 4, 9, and 10, on new station, so I knew everything, how it was done in our program, how we fly on Soyuz, how we operate in the station, how we do scientific experiments. And also, we had even some experience of doing international partnership because all flights new were already — was already international. But difference was that on Mir and on Soyuz, we were first in the program and we had get on the station from other country. When I came for shuttle everything was opposite. I was guest in the system and of course my American colleagues knew some things much deeper than I could learn in this period of time. But, for me, what was interesting that when we had our international guests on the station, we were professionals in our area, and they were not professionals. But, in this case, I deal with professionals who are in their own environment and it was very interesting for me to see how training system done, how system integration done, how troubleshooting of malfunction is done in American program and in our program. So actually, we discussed it to work with our partner because I was very pleased to see very professional and very motivated people. And actually, during our training we actually, even mentioned it after training and after flight that we start to understand each other much earlier than we improve our language. I mean, English language on my side or maybe Russian language when Americans start to fly on ours, because as a professional we start to understand each other, as we said, sometimes better than some of our specialists because we actually, we did the productivity and we came in about the same way of the program because many people were professional — already professionals in their area before they came to astronaut office. And they’re professional pilots, professional engineers, professional scientists, and I was very pleased to work in this professional group of people.

Host: And you continued to work with a diverse group of international crews as you did International Space Station Expeditions, of course, Expedition 1, which the anniversary of which we just celebrated, and Expedition 11, where you were commander of the International Space Station. Can you talk about the differences between those two expeditions, elaborating more on Expedition 1, some of your mission objectives?

Sergei Krikalev: The mission objective for the station was to make station alive, because when we came to the station most of the system were in off mode and we needed to activate them, some systems we need to assemble, and some system was very difficult to assemble, because like some life support systems needed to be activated in a couple weeks, and if something happens, something goes wrong, and something we wouldn’t be able to handle, and we wouldn’t be able to activate the system. Some of scenarios were to terminate the mission and go back home. So, probably that’s why our expedition were assembled from very experienced people already flown in space and being able to troubleshoot problems if we face this problem. And for us, what was very interesting, and it was interesting not only for us, it was very interesting even for engineers because usually, if we do some different parts of the station, for example, on our side we usually make them on the ground before flight, we usually check everything before we send it to space to be sure that things would work properly in space. But for Expedition 1, and actually even for mission STS-88, some parts of the system never saw each other on the ground. So, we did some connection only using engineering drawing or engineering experience, but really, some pieces were not really made on the ground before we made it in space. So, and actually, not everything worked smooth. Sometimes — I remember we were trying to connect one connector and for some reason, there was a mistake in assembly, and we had to invent, recreate — provide this connection. I remember, even on Russian side, we had also some problems with opening hatches because access with key for opening the hatches were built with mistake and we need to invent our own way how to still perform the task we need to perform. So, I remember we had malfunction on arriving Progress vehicle, cargo vehicle, that was coming to the station and it was not able to dock with us in automatic mode. So, Yuri Gidzenko and I needed to do this approach manually and still things were not very smooth, so we had to actually use not normal way to dock a coming vehicle to the station. So, we had a lot of very interesting and very challenging things. And what was interesting, what I remember from this mission, it was very interesting to see how, for example, new modules during our mission [inaudible] didn’t fly our flight ourselves. We start flying on the station that’s only three modules and actually only two of these modules were available for us in the very beginning. But then that shuttle would come and bring extra solar ray and we were able to provide power to the Node and open the hatch to the Node because before that the thermal conditions on — in the Node were not be able to maintain. So, we needed to wait shuttle for to open hatch to another Node. And then I remember that another shuttle come with spacelabs, with the modules, flight 8 in our sequence, but the lab came to this flight and crew. We were very happy to see crew arriving to us and helping to assemble and make all necessary connections left. And lab was really empty. So, we started out with lab to make it’s really a lab and make it alive. So, the first — the first Expedition was challenging, and it was interesting and I’m very happy that in spite of all problems that we had basically every day, we still were able to reach the goal and make station alive, what was basically prime goal for our Expedition.

Host: What an important way to kick off the International Space Station. I know you visited again for Expedition 11 in 2005. At the end of that expedition, you had accumulated more than 800 days in space. Here we are, 15 years later, and you’re still third on the all-time record of time in space, behind Gennady Padalka and Yuri Malenchenko. Your thoughts on spending so much time in space and setting a record that still stands today.

Sergei Krikalev: Maybe a few words about Expedition 11. Unfortunately, Expedition 11 was also not very normal flight. Like Expedition 1 was unusual because it was certain we need to do everything for the first time. But then in 2003, after crash of shuttle, really a number of crew on the station from three to two people and it was very challenging also because for — it’s a really big station, it’s a lot of tasks we need to do every day. We have — we have only go to. And several expeditions flew with reduced crew to continue science, to continue life support on the station. And maybe another interesting part of this mission that for more than two years, shuttle didn’t fly to the station, but Expedition 11 was Expedition when first shuttle after tragedy came to the station and we were very glad to see our colleagues on the station again. And station, after that flight, station start to continue assembly and out seeking for maintenance station in the final configuration. So, if we talk about — yeah, because I remember, I was — the record itself does not go for the flight. I — before the flight, I mentioned that if everything goes normal and every time you don’t feel that everything would be normal, but everything would be normal, like probably I received the longest, total time duration for record setting cosmonaut, it was Sergei Avdeyev, who flew 747 days, and I knew that I would be somewhere around 800, so probably I would break this record. But when mission control told me that today you’re exceeding the previous record for total time in space, I remember we were joking saying, well, it’s a very convenient record because today I broke Sergei Avdeyev’s record, but tomorrow I will break my own today record, and it will be until the end of the flight. So, it was kind of interesting to know that every day was record-setting day. But, as I said, the record itself was not the goal, it was kind of side effect of this mission. But what was interesting that with this — my sixth flight, it’s very interesting to see what changed on the ground because from my first flight to sixth flight I was able to see some change on the ground, to see how some area start to be more [inaudible] on space. We have some places more developed from agricultural point of view. We saw that we obviously see some changes on the ground, connected sometimes with nature, sometimes with human activity. But another maybe interesting point that we are gaining experience and we knew that with experience of spaceflight we will need some time in the future, maybe not even tomorrow, maybe some time after tomorrow when we have to fly outside low-Earth orbit and we will need all our experience gained in all these 60 plus and maybe 70 plus Expedition on ISS with experience of shuttle flying, of Apollo missions, Skylab missions. All this experience we will need for future flight outside low- Earth orbit when we are going to fly to Moon and further out.

Host: That’s very important Sergei and I want to end with this, given your experience and everything done for the International Space Station for what stands as 20 years of continuous human presence and cooperation, some final words of wisdom for those coming on to work for the future of Roscosmos, for NASA, and for space agencies around the world.

Sergei Krikalev: Maybe just for me it was a little bit upset moment when my manager said, well, let new guy fly a little bit, help them with preparation for the flight, helping the U.S. to build new vehicle. So, and I still not close to the issue of possible future spaceflights, but after my sixth flight I was working at Energia and I was working with head of training center, helping not only Russians, but also our international partners get ready for spaceflight. So, I think it’s very important that previous generation or maybe people who already have experience in flight, continue transferring the experience for future Expeditions for future programs, future hardware developing, and that’s the first part. And second part, what we learn from, what I learned from previous missions that much more efficient and actually much more interesting to do things together, because sometimes you know how to do things, but your partner can have alternate thought, and sometimes you can learn something from your friends and the more diversity we have for in our team, the more new capabilities you can have. So, I think it’s very important that we learn how to do complicated things together and I think we can use this experience for future programs.

Host: Mr. Krikalev, wonderful words and thank you for taking the time to do this interview with me. Here we are crossing this great milestone, 20 years of continuous human presence on the International Space Station. It’s been an honor to speak with you today. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Sergei Krikalev: Thank you.

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Host: Hey, thanks for sticking around. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Sergei Krikalev and learned a lot about what it took to get to that point of starting Expedition 1 and kicking off what would be 20 continuous years of human presence. We’re not done yet. We’re still going to be putting out more episodes on the 20th anniversary, because honestly, it kicks off a lot of the activities aboard the International Space Station. In fact, we got a collection of panels that we hosted for the 20th anniversary coming up. We’ll kick that off next month, so visit our International Space Station collection. You can just search on whatever browser you prefer. Just search Houston We Have a Podcast, Space Station Episodes. There’s a collection there and you can go to listen to any of those episodes in no particular order and stay tuned for some of those panels. So, it took a lot to get this episode out here in 2021, in January. This episode actually we recorded — we had some issues with the audio itself and had to restore the audio. It took some time, we actually recorded this back in August of 2020, trying to set it up for the 20th anniversary, but it took some time. So, I want to say a big thanks to all the folks here, to Greg Wiseman and Pat Ryan, and to John Stoll, Alex Perryman, and a lot of the folks that helped to make this episode still a reality even though we had to restore it. It took a lot of effort and here we are putting it out now in 2021 and we’re still keeping the conversation going about 20 continuous years, so. So, I’m glad we got to bring this to you today. You could check out this podcast and others at NASA.gov/podcasts and you can engage with us on social media. You know where we are, the Johnson Space Center pages of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and you can use the hashtag #AskNASA on any of those platforms to submit an idea for the show, and just make sure to mention it’s for us at Houston We Have a Podcast. This episode was recorded on August 20, 2020, thanks to Alex Perryman, Pat Ryan, Norah Moran, Jennifer Hernandez, Belinda Pulido, Greg Wiseman, and Oleg Bolashev and Roscosmos for their support. And thanks again to Sergei Krikalev for taking the time to come on the show. We’ll be back next week.