Svetlana Omelchenko Biography

So the four -week medical marathon is completed. All samples are credited, behind psychological tests, meters of an X -ray film shot, ahead is a complete unknown, because it is still so unknown whether our flight will take place and when. Decision for the government. I think to accept it is not so simple. In fact, before the flight of a journalist into space in our extremely difficult time?

This question is often asked by friends. First, they are usually interested in how where the astronauts are selected, is it very difficult? They ask: how did you decide? They want to know: how could you? And then - whether it is necessary that not a pilot, a researcher, a scientist, but a journalist, that is, a passenger, because it is not it, and in a short time it is impossible to make a professional cosmonaut out of journalists.

Yes, and not necessary - this is already my opinion. Let everyone do their job well. For a journalist, space flight is nothing more than a business trip. The main thing is not to be a burden for the crew and maintain performance in order to cope well with your task. The medical stage of our competition was not at all to fight. We were not rivals - like -minded people, we all hurt, for each other and each time regretfully said goodbye to everyone who, after an unsuccessful test, was going home.

I will not talk in detail here about all the trials. I admit, there was a moment when I trembled a little. This happened on the day when we were first brought to a centrifug. Right the legs buckled from one type of monstrous hammer with a counterweight, with a frantic force rotating in the middle of an empty round hall. There, in the core of a heavy armored cabin, overloads are modeled, the maximum for us is eight times.

But she looked that others came out of there alive, and the fear passed, she gave way to the desire to occupy an almost cosmic chair. The most difficult thing for me was completely different - to take care of the remaining house of my daughter. She is the seventeenth year. Graduation class. In the evenings, classes at the preparatory department of the institute, at half -past 3, returns to the subway from the opposite end of the city to an empty apartment.

Not such a big problem to cook your food. But does mom need only a mother in order to cook, serve, clean? Of course, they were quite tense, these weeks, but not the most difficult in life. The crucified on the Ortostol, I suddenly remembered that I did not make the coupons for sugar, they disappeared, and the bicycle ergometer, maybe because I only unscrewed it successfully, that I was afraid, as if the nearest department store had not closed at the break, where in the morning they traded in English washing powder.

And even occasionally it was necessary to appear in the editorial office in order to hand over a report printed right in the ward on a launch machine, respond to letters, subtract a strip with your material. It was difficult to respond to the reproaches of the responsible secretary: they say, it appears as a red sun; And only an hour ago I got out of the baroacer, or rather, went down from a height of 5 thousand kilometers, more precisely, dive at a speed of 45 meters per second, and now, according to all the rules, it should lie, gain strength before a new breakdown, and not find out why the material transferred to the editorial office is outdated without reaching the reader.

Journalists of the Air Transport newspaper are accustomed to cope with overloads and stresses, which are more than enough on any business trip. Say, in comparison with an eight -hour flight to the Academy of Sciences, the cumulator of the acceleration of Coriolis is not the most pleasant sample will seem like a children's attraction. And our stormy glider and brainstorms! It is a pity that it never occurred to anyone to shoot encephalograms and electrocardiograms from journalists during their usual work.

Shortly before our group, the medical staff examined Japanese journalists. The young overseas colleague painted a plan of her house on a piece of paper: a living room, a bedroom, a dog room. And now you, - and she pushed the sheet of the nurse living in a communal apartment. They were very mixed, Japanese citizens, that our sisters measure the pulse with the old grandfather method, putting their fingers on the wrist and not taking their eyes off the stopwatch.

And the bottles for collecting a well-known analysis were forced to sink with laughter. I wonder how it is done with them, Japan? We do not live too richly, are not spoiled by either wealth or amenities. Even for the examination of astronauts, it is lacking of devices. So to flights into space? Do we need to send a journalist to orbit today? At least in order to know for sure what folk money is spent on, which is so lacking in the country's budget.

It is necessary, because it is impossible for future generations to trade in subsoil, intellect, and prestige of the state. We have not devoted our space competition to children. While adults solve their difficult problems of power, interethnic relations, food, housing, children's mortality, crime, the number of suicides among adolescents, and drug addiction are growing. We, and no one else, is guilty of the spiritlessness of our children.

The space flight of journalists will not remove all the difficulties of difficult issues.But if our project is realized, we will be able to bring medicines from orbit for some, to attract others to science, give children lessons in peace and patriotism, to many, and not only children, to return faith to a bright future. More than anything, I love my daughter, my house, my land.

But I will overcome indecision and fear of all trials for the sake of one, even a small step towards the realization of a dream of not only my generation.