Space Oddity: The Soviet outpost used to simulate space
The sight of the whole Earth floating in a sea of inky blackness is bound to produce some unwanted side effects. Astronauts perform menial tasks for weeks, months and sometimes years on end, only ever communicating with their fellow crew members and Mission Control. No wonder the thing so many people journeying into space fear the most is the thought of being left on their own. Isolation, it turns out, can do strange things to the human brain.
Take the astronauts aboard the early Apollo missions for example, who experienced frequent hallucinations – flashes of technicolour light that came from nowhere. After returning from a 2012 mission on the International Space Station, Don Pettit described them as “luminous dancing fairies”, and though they were easy to ignore during work hours, they became relentlessly vivid when it was time to go to sleep. In 1976, the crew of the Russian Soyuz-21 mission were forced to return to Earth after noticing a strange smell aboard the Salyut-5 space station. After they reported a possible fluid leak, a replacement crew were sent to fix the problem and continue the mission. Strangely, there were no technical issues to be found, let alone the acrid smell the previous crew had spoken of. It was established that the crew had experienced a sort of collective nervous breakdown due to interpersonal issues and psychological stress.
Even before the first human was sent into orbit, several Freudian psychiatrists were writing about the psychological stress of space travel. In a 1959 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, they argued that separation from “mother earth” might lead to a sort of “separation anxiety.” They warned that the astronaut’s desire to escape their situation by suicide might be accompanied by a strong desire to take the space vehicle and the rest of the crew with them.
Unsurprisingly, then, the impact of space travel on the human brain was a key cause of concern for both the Americans and the Soviets during the Space Race. The Soviet Union’s space programme was shrouded in mystery from the very beginning, and there were few places more secretive than Zvyozdny Gorodok, or Star City, located in Moscow Oblast, just outside the Russian capital. Originally known simply as ‘Closed Military Townlet No.1’, for anyone who didn’t live there, Star City did not exist. In fact, its theoretical non-existence was assured by a hefty military presence.
Star City gave Soviet cosmonauts their first taste of the crushing loneliness of space. Those training for upcoming missions lived in the townlet in isolated bubbles, where they were slowly familiarised with the harsh conditions they would experience on future expeditions. When they returned to Earth, many continued to live in the city with their families, hence why Star City has its own kindergarten and high school. In 1968, Star City became the Yari Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre – named after the first man to travel into space. However, it quickly readopted its former name when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Since then, the formerly closed city has opened up, working in close collaboration with NASA and participating in exchange programs. From 2001-2003, Star City’s Director of Nasa Operations was Chris Hadfield, who shot to fame after he shared a zero-gravity cover of David Bowie’s 1969 track ‘Space Oddity’ in 2013, a track in which the profound vastness of space is captured by the astronaut’s observation that “Planet Earth is blue / and there’s nothing I can do.”
