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A Pilgrimage to Star City!

Posted 10/18/2012 12:10 AM by Steven Lee | Comments

Very unassuming entrance to Star City.
A peek inside the Soyuz descent module. It's incredibly cramped quarters for the three crew members.
Cosmonauts train for space walks in a huge "swimming pool" containing mockups of the ISS.
Our DMNS crew near the dreaded centrifuge. Required training for all cosmonaut crew members.
Tony Combs examines a full-size mockup of the Soyuz spacecraft.
Entrance to the Yuri Gagarin Museum at Star City.
The Russian Air Force uniform of Hero of the Soviet Union, Yuri Gagarin.
Statue of Yuri Gagarin; the Russian people idolize this first man to orbit Earth.
Our entire tour group in Red Square with St. Basil's Cathedral in the background.
We strolled past Lenin's Tomb en route to our hotel near Red Square.

We spent most of today on the outskirts of Moscow at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center -- also known as Star City. This is the once top-secret facility where all cosmonauts have been trained since the beginning of the Space Age. Since crew members of all nationalities are now launched to the ISS only onboard Russian Soyuz rockets and spacecraft, many American astronauts have also seen training here. We had an extensive inside view of Star City, so I'll let some snapshots fill in a few of the details. The evening was capped by a walk through Red Square. Tomorrow, it's off to Moscow's outskirts again to tour the Monino Russian Federation Air Force Museum. That'll be a great look back to the era of the Cold War -- as seen through the eyes of Russians. Stay tuned!