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THE LAST SOVIET - EP 7: Homecoming · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Just before Christmas nineteen sixty eight, three men blasted off
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: from Cape Kernaville, Florida. Frank Bourman, James Lovell and Bill
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Anders were on a very special mission to orbit the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Moon for the first time. They were leaving behind a
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: world in crisis. Martin Luther King was shot and was
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: killed tonight in the metals, two hundred and thirty two
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: gis killed and nine hundred wounded, makes one of the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: heaviest weeks in the Vietnam War. Senator Robert Francis Kennedy
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: died at one forty four am today, June six, nineteen
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: sixty eight. Nineteen sixty eight was the year the world
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: tore itself apart. The unrest and violence had spread rappid
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: in Paris. It was a night of wild disorder. Russians
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: have occupied Czechoslovakia, and as the three astronauts soar into
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: lunar orbit, they pray for the people back home. In
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the earth was about form and void and darkness, with
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: upon the face of the deep, and the bearing of
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: God moved upon the face of the water, and God
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: let there be light. They go around the moon three times,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: recording data, trying to pick landmarks out of the relentless gray.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: But I couldn't get it quick enough look at it
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: to see it lany. But on their fourth orbit, Bill
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Anders looks out of his left hand side window and
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: he sees something that makes him lose that trademark astronaut composure.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, look at that picture of it in
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the Earth coming up. Wow, just over the Moon's curved horizon,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: A slither of bright blue is rising up from the blackness.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: It's the Earth, this rich patchwork of green, white and
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: dazzling blue coming out of the darkness, A small, perfect
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: circle in our huge universe, so far away, so beautiful.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Film him color quick. Bill scampers to get a camera
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: and load a roll of film to get a once
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: in a lifetime shot the Earth rising in the distance.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Probably seen that shot. It's now become known as earth Rise,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: one of the most powerful photos ever. It showed the
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: world as a singular, fragile oasis, and God it was
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: good and the girl a boy A good night. I married,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and God will have all of you, all of you
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: on the good Earth. When they landed, Bill, who took
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the photo, said, we came all this way to explore
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the Moon, and the most important thing is that we
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: discovered the Earth. That photo. It changed Bill. He'd grown
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: up your classic cold warrior, convinced the Soviet Union was
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: evil incarnate, that America's role in the world was to
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: defeat its enemies. But when he saw the Earth, he
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: had a profound realization. This is the only home we have,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and yet we're busy shooting each other, threatening nuclear war
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: and wearing suicide vests. It amazes me. You can't go
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: to space, see the Earth from a distance and come
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: back the same person. Bill was only in space for
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: a week, and it changed his whole life. It's an experience.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Many astronauts talk about the feeling of suddenly seeing our
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: planet from a distance, realizing that we're all connected, that
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: our humanity transcends national borders. In politics. The philosopher Frank
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: White even gave that feeling a name, the overview effect.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I wonder if Serage Krikalev experienced something like it decades
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: later in space for three and thirteen days, watching storms
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: brew and subside, city lights go on and off, seeing
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: no countries, no borders, just these huge, anonymous, yellow green
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: chunks of land. Suspended in a brilliant blue sea. How
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: did that change him and what would happen when he
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: came back. I'm Lance bass And from Kaleidoscope and iHeart
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: and Exile Media. This is the last Soviet It's early
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two. Sergei Krikolev has been in space for
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: nearly a year. After a long day of repair work,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: he floats over to his ham radio station, looking forward
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: to a call with Maggie. They talk about normal stuff,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: what he's been doing on the station, about Maggie's kids,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: But then the tone changes. She says, Saragay, I actually
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: have a question for you. It's from a journalist. He
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: wants to know if the Russians are selling mer your
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: space station. Could it really be true they want to
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: sell the station that he sacrificed so much to keep alive.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Sarage doesn't know what to tell Maggie. In fact, the
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Russians had put a price tag on the space station
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: six hundred million dollars. NASA was tempted, but in the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: end the Americans decided it was a national security concern.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: It went nowhere. Meanwhile, the Russians are desperately trying to
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: sell a seat to space. It's the only way they
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: can get enough cash to bring Saragey back, And so
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: month after month, the same directive crackles across the radio.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Just stay put, But Sarah Gay is getting agitated eating.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: He asked Mischi Control to send a supply craft with
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: some honey to cheer himself up. Sorry, they say none available.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Times are tough. They sent lemons and horseradish instead. But
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: finally Sarah Gay receives the call he's been waiting for him.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: We found a German cosmonaut. He's buying a seat for
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: twenty four million dollars. You're coming home. Sarahgee makes calls
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: to his family. The news spreads, he does a press conference.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: One Russian journalist asked him, when you left Earth, it
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: was still the USSR. Your city was called Leningrad and
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: now it's Saint Petersburg. What is the biggest change for you?
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Saragey pauses, then says, so much has changed, but what
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: surprises me most is that at first the Earth was dark,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and then it was light. It was winter, then summer.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Now everything is thawing again. That's the biggest change you
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: can see from here. His last days are filled with
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: handover tasks, checks, final repairs, writing up notes for the
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: next crew. And then it's time to call Maggie. You father,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: my you father. Ready to go home? Okay, she sounds flat,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: not her usual self. I'm going to miss you, but blood,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: we're here to go home, he says. I'm glad too,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to miss my friends. And then the
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: connection cuts and I'm Maggie. You have a few things
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: too that you would like to read to us that
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: they actually sent to you from space. Oh one is
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: a very poignant letter. That's Maggie on an Australian radio show.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Perhaps Margaret, you have read that that they considered say,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: a time traveler. In other words, he was in space
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: while his country changed its name, attract the political system.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Everything changed, everything changed, and their pay changed, their their
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: rank or status, everything changed, and he was in space
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: is going to return to a new world. It was
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: rather like he was a time traveler, time travel time traveler.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: And I received a really lovely letter from Sudage. Would
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: you like to hear that letter? It's rather interesting and
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: this is what Sudhegey said, my head. It translated to
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: be precise. It is as yet difficult to say how
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: our life will change in these circumstances. Previously, the borders
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: between republics were by convention. If the republics are separated anymore,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: there will be more problems from space. The Earth is
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: like a map, but in contrast to a map, there
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: are no borders seen. It is pleasant when there are
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: fewer borders. People can rub shoulders, be friends, travel freely
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: among each other, and get to know one another more.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Many of our friends in real to live in different republics.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: If rigid borders between neighboring people appear, then that will
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: be bad. Sarage's vantage point on the collapse of the
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: USSR was to say the least unique. Like Bill Landers,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: the guy who took the Earthrise photo serge experienced his
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: own version of the overview effect. He continues to say,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: there are always changes going on, even when one returns
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: from a short journey. One must become accustomed to changes,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and his very last comment, it's a long flight now.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Rapid change is at home. We know a lot from
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: news on the radio, but for all that, in order
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: to understand everything and get used to it, it is
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: necessary to return and plunge into this life on the
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: twenty fifth of March nineteen ninety two, Serge's capsule lands
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: in the desert steps of Bikanore, now Kazakhstan, a new country.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: People run to the capsule, open the hatch Saraghe's lungs
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: fill with fresh air. He feels hands dragging him out.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: He tries to move, but his limbs feel like heavy dough.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: His skin's clammy. Someone is fanning his face with a handkerchief.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: He feels a blanket being wrapped around his shoulders. Warm
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: broth is spooned into his mouth. The press cameras click
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: away in the background. After the doctor has checked his
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: blood pressure and heart rate, Surge, still pretty out of it,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: is bundled off into a small plane that's going to
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: take him home. But it's not home as he knows it.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: When he left, his city was called Leningrad. Now it's
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Saint Petersburg. And in the new Saint Petersburg sarage, the
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: hero who saved mere earns less than a taxi driver.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: He discovers he can barely afford his weekly shop, and
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: no one cares about cosmonauts. Now we live in a
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: different reality. That's Artemi Trotzky again, one of the founders
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: of the Gagaran raves. I think that the perception of
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: normal people here is just forget it all right, Yes,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: we're the first man in space. It was great, but
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: so what, so what the dream of the Soviets conquering space,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the dream that started with Uri Gagaron, It's died. Sarage
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Hessaker fist everything for this dream, his own body, time
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: with his family. But now finally back home, he's a
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: nobody in this. In your reality, they're simply low space
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: for space. Everything is very much down to Earth now,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: and Serage is maybe starting to wonder will he ever
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: go to space again. He's a real space here and
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: the second biggest space hereafter, but in Les Condri is
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: almost unknown. His colleagues are leaving the Space Agency in
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: droves to work in places making plastic toys, Coca Cola,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Western products, and if they can't get those jobs, they
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: sell their space metals in the metro. But then sometime
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: in the summer, just as the first long warm evenings
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: are creeping up, Sarage gets an opportunity from an unlikely source,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and I said, okay, what is it? He said, well,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: it's STS sixty and you're going to have two Russian
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: cosmonauts who are going to train with you, and one
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: of them will fly, And I said, forget it. I'm
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a marine. I trained all my life to kill those guys,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: and they trained all their life to kill me, and
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I don't want to fly with any damn Russian. My
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: preconceptions about the USSR was that they were one of
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the most powerful militaries in the world, and that everything
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: that they did was designed to take down the US,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: and that they would stop at nothing to do that.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: They were our ultimate enemy. That's Charles Bolden, retired astronaut
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: and the first black NASA administrator well a day. I
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: did not want to become an astronaut growing up. I
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: grew up in the segregated South during the time of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Jim Crow in schools, and because of the way things
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: were when I grew up, I knew what astronauts were,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: but that was not anything that was remotely possible in
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: my mind. They were all white, they were all about
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: five ten. I was none of those and I never
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: did become five ten, so I was never going to
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: get tall enough to be an astronaut in my mind. Instead,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Charles joined the Army Major General Charles F. Bulden, Jr.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: US Marine Corps retired. He fought against the Communists in
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Vietnam when things were at their hottest. He risked his
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: life and he came back to the US a certified
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Cold warrior, And in nineteen eighty one Charles applied to
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: become an astronaut. He went from fighting communism in the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: skies of Asia to doing it on a much higher
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: plane space. We lived in a bipolar world at that time,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: and the two powers had been the Soviet Union and
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the United States, with their president's finger was on the
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: trigger that could destroy the planet. So we were by
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: no means friends were wanting to be friends at that time.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: But then in December nineteen ninety one, the Soviet Union
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: fell apart. Just like that, the Cold War ended, America
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: emerged victorious, and they saw an opening well today, for
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the first time an American president and the democratically elected
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: president of an independent Russia had met. In February nineteen
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: ninety two, Bush Senior and the new Russian President Yeltsin
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: met for the first time at Camp David, and we
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: did so not as adversaries but as friends standing side
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: by side, and their matching fur line parkers. In front
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: of the world's press, Bush presented the leader with a
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: cake and a pair of black leather cowboy boots, and
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: this his star meeting, was yet another confirmation of the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: end of the Cold War and the dawn of a
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: new era. But behind the scenes, away from the cameras,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: there were very serious talks in the back rooms where
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: politics actually happens, and it was not about friendship and
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: world peace. No. President Bush was worried about something else.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: He became very concerned that with the disintegration of the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Soviet Union, everything that was a part of the Soviet
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: space program, as well as all their science and technology,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: their nuclear arsenal, and everything might be subject to some
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: nefarious either nation state or somehow, and he did not
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: want to see all that go out across the world.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: The Americans were basically afraid that newly unemployed Russian engineers,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: guys like Seragei, would go work for other countries not
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: so friendly to America, say Iran, who knew where the bombs,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: where the brain power, where all that stuff was gonna go.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: It sounds a little James Bond, the Maverick Sovid engineer
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: going rogue building the most powerful nuclear weapon. But this
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: was a genuine worry, and so the Americans thought, we
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: need to try to get hold of this ourselves first,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: which is how in nineteen ninety two, astronaut Charles Bolden
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: found himself in his boss's office being assigned to a
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: very special mission. And I said, Okay, what is it.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: He said, well, it's STS sixty and you're going to
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: have two Russian cosmonauts who are going to train with you,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: and one of them will fly. And I said, forget it.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't even hesitate. I said, George, forget it.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I'm a marine. I trained all my life to kill
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: those guys, and they trained all their life to kill me.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to fly with any damn Russian.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: But as boss says, look, we want to show the
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: world that we can be friends with the Russians or
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: former enemy, that we can work together, and this is
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: how we want to do it this mission. I understand
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: your concerns, but the Russian cosmonaut chosen. He's pretty impressive.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And it turned out that there was this cosmonaut, young
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: cosmonaut by the name of Sergey Konstantinovitch Krikoloff, who was
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the commander of mir you know, the guy who agreed
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: to stay in space as his country collapsed for almost
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: a year. And so he said, you may as well
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: go to dinner with him and at least you see
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: what you think and then come back in and tell
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: me tomorrow morning. Yeah, tomorrow morning, because Sergey is actually
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: already in DC. And what we were trying to find
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: out was can we work together collaboratively or are we
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: going to be at each other's throats and we just
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: can't make this work. That evening there's a dinner at
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: a fellow astronaut's house, a seemingly relaxed affair. The dinner
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: turned out to be the critical event in this whole thing,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and it was everything pivoted at the dinner. There's a
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: bunch of people there, but the two crucial players are
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Sage and Charles. And so by way of introduction, we
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: each started talking about our families. I had a son
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: and daughter. Sarage said he had a daughter called Olga
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and you know, just a little baby, so to speak.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: So our conversation turned immediately to our kids and what
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: they were doing and everything, and eventually we started talking
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: about you know what kind of world did we want
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: our kids to grow up in. If we were king
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: for a day or whatever, what would we do to
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: make the world a better place for our kids? And
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: we talked a pretty long time. We were both the
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: same way. We wanted a peaceful world. We wanted a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: world in which people work together collaboratively for the good
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: of humankind. And you know, we just made things better.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Charles came home that evening in a daze. This was
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: his first time meeting a Russian in person, a former enemy.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: He was impressed, and turns out they share the same worldview.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: The next morning, Charles calls his boss and says, I've
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: changed my mind. I'll go on this mission. And so
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: a couple of days after that dinner with Charles, Sage
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: gets on another plane to the American star city, Houston, Texas.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: That's after the break. For this whole thing to work,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Sarage first needs to integrate into the American way of life,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: and so NASA assigned him a trual handler. My name
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: is officially Kenneth S. Rutler Junior. Ken was in a
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: way given the hardest job to introduce this Russian cosmonaut
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: to capitalism. He'd spent months thinking about what it might
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: be like to be in Saragey's shoes. He'd seen the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: news on TV, the empty shelves and the collapsing country,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: but now standing in Houston arrivals, it was time to
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: put the research to the test. We weren't sure about
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: how they were driving. We didn't know whether they understood
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: how rental cars work. I remember showing them how to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: go to a self service gas station and pump gas
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: and pay for it, and how to go to an
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: ATM and get cash out of it, things like that.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: So Ken's got Sarage a car, a bank account, a
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: new rental apartment, and now it's time to buy some groceries.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: He takes Sarage to a giant supermarket nearby called Fiesta Marte.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: A fun place. It was one of the bigger, more
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: interesting shopping centers. Everything you could possibly want there. Oh, Ken,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: bad choice. I saw his eyes get bigger and bigger
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: as he saw so much stuff on the shelves, and
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: it was very clear that there was a decision process
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: going on. How am I going to decide how I
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: buy food for my family? Sage looks panicked. Ken's confused,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: What is it. That is the problem, and he explained
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: that they didn't have that money selections, and so he
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: was struggling with trying to make a decision of product
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: day versus product. Be Kins like, fine, we can take
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: it easy. Let's meal plan. So we'll start with breakfast.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: All right, Sergey, what do you like to eat for breakfast? Well,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I like to eat cereal. Okay, great, let's go over here.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: And he and I walked down to the cereal aisle.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: There's a whole aisle of cereal, frosties, Coco pops, rice, crispies,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: and once again, you know, they eyes got big, and
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: he said, well, you know, in the Soviet Union, we
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: have two kinds of Syria. We have white cereal and
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: we have brown cereal. That is a problem because we
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: have a lot of cereal to choose from here. It
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: takes some time to put it lightly. But finally Ken
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and Serage worked through breakfast, lunch, and dinner and make
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: it to the checkout. And I realized at one point
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: we had really achieved a major breakthrough. And that was
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: when Sergey deferred to me to make a decision. And
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: so you got enough trust in my judgment and my
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: tastes that I could make decisions for him. I knew
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: that we were on a really good path. The next
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: step on that path was the actual training, survival training,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: swimming training, ejection seat training, etc. But the Americans aren't
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: exactly worried about Serge doing his homework. So I had
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: been in space for five days, and Sergey at this
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: point had had fifteen months in space. He was the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: veteran space layout. Serge had way more flight experience than
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: almost than our whole crew put together. And so on
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the third of February nineteen ninety four, when Serge was
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: putting on a space suit ready to go into the capsule,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Charles and Ken were one confident it was time to
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: show the world that Americans and Russians could work together
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: how systems are go for launch. At this time just
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: a few minutes away from the eighteenth voyage of Discovery
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: on an eight day history making mission, but the first
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: flight of a Russian cosmonaut aboard the United States Space Shuttle.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I don't think any of us ever lost track of
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the historical significance of what was about to happen. Lit Alone,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Serge two one, hisstor ignission and liftoff of discovery on
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: a whole new era of space flight between the United
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: States and Russia. I think most of us in NASA
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: understood that the primary focus of the mission, no matter
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: what it said in the public affairs guide, was to
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: be a demonstration and that ris Cosmos and NASA could
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: come together, representing our two nations and demonstrate that we
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: could effectively train to live and work together to carry
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: off a successful mission that would benefit humanity. And one
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: of the things that we did for the Russian people,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: we wanted to do a gesture that would that would
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: mean something in them, and so we learned a Russian lullaby.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I forget, I can't even remember the name of it,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: but every Russian child knows this lullaby because it's sung
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: to them every night at about eight o'clock when their
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: parents put them to bed. That was the gesture to
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: the people of Russia, to the children of Russia, to
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: let them know that here's your crew member representing you
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: and your country up here with us. But we want
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: to let you know how much we appreciate your culture,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: and this is our feeble effort to reach out to you.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: As soon as they landed, a week later, the mission
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: was declared a resounding success. Welcome home Discovery, Prekrasna way
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: for a new era of cooperation in human space flight.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Great job. The teamwork that came about as a result
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: of preparing for that mission and conducting it was priceless
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: because when Sarage came back, the United States and Russia
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: decided they could do something big together, something that would
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: change space in politics forever. In a few years, the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: brightest star ever will appear in the sky. There will
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: be a sign of hope because all these nations are
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: coming together. The utilized technology not to blow up humanity,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: but to make this place a better world. They decided
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: to build something the size of a football field in space,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the most expensive man made object and perhaps humanity's greatest
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: symbol of peace, an international space station. It is what
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: has allowed Russia and the United States from breaking up
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: in the one successful venture that we have today with
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: all of our diplomatic fur balls and crazy acting. Next
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: and final time on The Last Soviet, How Russia and
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: America built something together in space and How I Almost
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: got to Go. The Last Soviet is a Kaleidoscope production
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcast and Exile Media produced by
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Sama's Dad Audio and hosted by me Lance Bass Executive
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: produced by Kate Osbourne and mangesh Hada Kadoor, with Oz
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Wollishan and Kostas Linos from iHeart Executive produced by Katrina
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Norville and Nikki Ettore from Sama's Dad Audio are Executive
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: producers are Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitzina. Produced by Assia Fuchs,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Dasha Litzitzina and Joe Sykes. Writing by Lydia Marchant, Research
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: by Mika Golubovski and Molly Schwartz, Music by Will Epstein,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Themed by Martin Orstrin, Mixing and sound design by Richard Ward,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: and special thanks to Nando Villa Well, Lissa Pollock, Will Pearson,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Connel Byrne, Bob Pittman, and Isaac Lee. If you want
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: to hear more shows like this, nothing is more important
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: to the creators here at Kaleidoscope than subscribers, ratings, and reviews,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: so please spread the love wherever you listen.