Russia (bbabo.net) - Getting out of the Soyuz MS-20 descent capsule, Japanese space tourist Yusaku Maezawa exclaimed: "Here I am on Earth!" He returned from the ISS along with his assistant Yoji Hirano and cosmonaut Hero of Russia Alexander Misurkin. The video footage of the landing clearly shows: everyone is smiling, everything is OK.
True, the weather at the landing site turned out to be worse than ever. Therefore, from the charred descent vehicle, rescuers helped the crew to evacuate immediately to special vehicles, and not to helicopters, as usual ... Then, from the aviation search and rescue group, the cosmonauts were taken to the city of Zhezkazgan on Mi-8.
Now ahead is a rehabilitation course at the Cosmonaut Training Center. It will take 14 to 21 days. Let us remind you that this flight of "amateurs" on the Russian "Soyuz" is the first in the last twelve years. And the first, when there were two of them on board at once. Previously, the ISS was visited by seven space tourists, who laid out millions of dollars from their own pockets for the pleasure of looking at the Earth from a height of 400 km.
Yusaku Maezawa became the first space tourist from Japan. An interesting nuance: he previously announced plans to fly around the moon in 2023 on SpaceX's Starship spacecraft. If everything remains in effect, then the Japanese gained experience, frankly, invaluable.
Maezawa posted several videos on his YouTube channel about his stay at the station: how he moves in zero gravity, how he photographs the Earth from space and even how he brushes his teeth ... This is, so to speak, purely "sketch pictures" of a star traveler. In general, tourists became participants in several serious experiments that took place on board the ISS as part of a scientific program. In particular, medical research of blood microcirculation under microgravity conditions. Its results will further help in the development of prophylactic means for flights into deep space.
But, perhaps, the loudest emotions in the literal sense of the word were associated with the symbolic badminton match, which took place in a star communal apartment. As told in “Roskosmos”, Alexander Misurkin became the initiator of the match. The game was played according to special rules. In particular, no mesh.
By the way, for the first time a badminton tournament took place on the ISS back in January 2018: then the same Misurkin together with Anton Shkaplerov played with colleagues from NASA and JAXA. According to Misurkin, playing badminton outside of Earth was like putting a flag on Mars for him ...
The main idea of the match is to popularize an active lifestyle. As they say, on Earth and beyond. But badminton was also chosen as the most "space" kind of sport: it turns out that back in 1960 it was included in the system of physical training of cosmonauts personally by Chief Designer Sey Korolyov.
Yusaku Maezawa wanted to return the badminton rackets from the International Space Station. This was reported by RIA Novosti, referring to the negotiations of the ISS crew with the Earth, which are broadcast by NASA. As follows from the negotiations, the experts were initially opposed, since the rackets are rather large and fragile, but then they recommended consulting with the ship's commander. Commander Alexander Misurkin replied that he was 95% sure that it would be possible to put the rackets in the ship before returning.
Meanwhile
Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin instructed Eneia to present a plan to increase production of Soyuz MS series manned spacecraft for the development of space tourism. In recent years, four Soyuz MS were made here a year: two under the Federal Space Program and two under international contracts. After the American pilots began to fly, the obligations to deliver foreign astronauts to the ISS were lifted from Russia. “We got the opportunity to send crews of three Russian cosmonauts to the station. The first such crew of professional cosmonauts will fly to the ISS in the spring. We recently resumed the practice of space tourism. Rogozin.
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