Venus and Mars Are All Right Tonight, But That Russian Guy Is Getting On My Nerves
Friday, October 21, 2005 at 6:18AM in Our Comical Friends Across The Sea, Science Mr. Irresponsible always has one eye aimed at the far frontiers of interpersonal relationships. And what's farther than space, or more interpersonal than sex? So this dispatch from the invaluable NewScientist.com just about made my day. Not because it was "useful" or "informative" or "timely" or even "well-written," but because it shed light on a little-known incident in the recent history of what might be called Manners in Space. (Try to imagine the phrase read in a booming, echo-y voice, the syllables elongated for dramatic effect. It'll help you get into the spirit of the thing.)
Apparently a Russian cosmonaut got a little frisky during an eight-month terrestrial space-station simulation in 2000, and (NewScientist picks up the narrative)...
...twice tried to kiss a Canadian woman researcher just after two other Russians had gotten into a bloody brawl. As a result, locks were installed between the Russian and international crews' compartments.
What's delightful about this is the news that even highly-trained scientific professionals behave like the shirtless yahoos on "Cops" after a little indoor time and a few flash-frozen vodkas. Oh, to have been a fly on the shiny titanium wall that day -- the slurred recriminations, the sidebar fistfight, the angry shouts that "The stocky woman in the flannels loves only me, Mikhail Mikhailovich!" This is a deeply encouraging picture for those among us who occasionally enjoy a cocktail and occasionally find our judgment impaired, resulting in the occasional slap in the face or hurried, friend-assisted trip to a waiting car. It gives the lie to the muzzy notion of space as a final outpost of hands-across-the-water comity, a sort of 4H Club national convention hurtling through the cold skies at 17,000 miles per hour. I believe that it is this which has always made Americans skeptical of space exploration, even in the halcyon days of Apollo -- the suspicion that we were going to end up living in giant moonbases with travelers of every nationality, clasping hands and singing some ghastly synth-pop version of "Kumbaya" by earthlight. Now we know better. Space, if we ever do succeed in colonizing it, won't be a bastion of scientific fellowship and good feeling. It'll be Jacksonville on the night of the first Friday of the month, when the disability checks arrive. That I can handle. And Ivan, you can have my interstellar space Stroh's when you pry it from my cold, dead hand.
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