[FPSPACE] spirited debate on alleged inaccuracies in 'Rocket Men'

[James Oberg]

There's a spirited debate on alleged inaccuracies in 'Rocket Men',
a new book on Apollo-11, at the Amazon site here:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1MP6BYAVBJVM9/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg2?ie=UTF8&cdPage=2

In particular: I think we all have a special objection to the following astonishing 'revelation' about cosmonaut experience on Mir. How could the author make this claim, short of fantasizing it? 

Page 344:

"Long-term voyages will have to overcome the severe psychological problems that have revealed themselves aboard the Russian space station, Mir. Soviet psychologists discovered that, for the first two months in outer space, cosmonauts were busy and happy; then, their attitudes changed, and their work became meaningless and boring; eventually, the isolation of space turned the Mir spacefarers anxious, halluinatory, irritable, and morose."

News to me. I've been mighty impressed by the efficacy of Soviet/Russian psychological preparation, support, and rehabilitation activities for long-term space missions. The statement strikes me as more than mere;y 'wrong' -- it's insulting (and when necessary, I've done my share, and received my share, of THAT).

Here's a hint about the author's problem: multi-handed sources.

Following the above passage, the author then quotes Valeriy Ryumin as writing, "All the conditions necessary for murder are met if you shut two men in a cabin measuring eighteen feet by twenty and leave them together for two months." [footnoted to William Burrows, 'This New Ocean', 1998,  page 513 -- can somebody confirm that?] 

But I recall the words when Ryumin first used them. HE was quoting an American author, O Henry [1862-1910], as he [Ryumin] contemplated an impending six-month expedition to Salyut-6 (not Mir) -- an expedition that ultimately went quite well, psychologically. So did his second six-month mission the following year. The quote he used was of course in Russian, translated from the original English -- and when later republished, was translated back from Russian into English without recourse to using the original English version.

Here's the exact original quote: "The Handbook of Hymen", by O Henry
http://www.classicreader.com/book/635/1/ [First published in 'Munsey's Magazine', July 1906 -- later included in anthology 'Heart of the West']

"If you want to instigate the art of manslaughter just shut two men up in a eighteen by twenty-foot cabin for a month. Human nature won't stand it."


The attribution of the words to Ryumin, rather than HIS use of another person's words ["Sanderson Pratt" was the fictional narrator], appeared in 'New Scientist', April 17, 1993, in the article "Stop the rocket, I want to get off", by Ian Mundell. 
(http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13818693.700-stop-the-rocket-i-want-to-get-off-it-sounded-glamorousthe-ultimate-high-but-the-stark-reality-of-life-as-an-astronaut-is-becomingincreasingly-evident-to-psychologists-in-the-runup-to-a-mission-to-mars.html), Lead paragraph: "Cosmonaut Valery Ryumin wrote in his personal diary in 1980: 'All the necessary conditions to perpetrate a murder are met by locking two men in a cabin of 18 by 20 feet . . . for two months.' As far as the Western world knows Soviet space missions never went that far, despite missions lasting more than a year in the 90 cubic metres of the Mir orbital station." This quotation later reappeared, in the NY Times, during coverage of the Lisa Nowak psychological problems, again as an original thought of Ryumin's [http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/the-proper-care-feeding-and-discipline-of-astronauts/]

Next, ESA's website used the Ryumin quote as a warning on the hazards of space isolation: 
 
ESA - Human Spaceflight and Exploration - Astronauts - Living in space

http://www.esa.int/esaHS/ESAGO90VMOC_astronauts_0.html

  

Sooner or later, though, despite the marvellous views and the sense of mission, astronauts do feel the pressure of confinement in what amounts to a few small rooms. One Russian cosmonaut wryly remarked, "All the conditions necessary for murder are met if you shut two men in a cabin measuring 5 metres by 6 and leave them together for two months." 

 



 


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