11/19/2023 0 Comments Speaking in space station 14![]() 550 people have been to space since Russia’s Yuri Gagarin became the first person to make it up there in 1961, from 38 countries. This is where things get more interesting.Īt the moment, the world’s heavyweights in space exploration are from the US, Russia, the ESA, and China. What language will we speak on Mars and elsewhere? The third crew member (there are typically three people launched at a time) is not required to speak Russian, but when you’re almost guaranteed to float around in a space station with Russians for weeks or months at a time, it never hurts. You fly with Russians, you play by their rules, and you speak their language. Once they get there it’s all English, but during the launch this is all about safety and teamwork. All of these co-pilot astronauts traveling to the ISS with the Russian program are required to pass an ACTFL test, which is the US government’s Russian fluency exam. She states that a Russian captain is always in charge of the launch, but that another astronaut – usually American – is the “co-pilot” and must be able to communicate at an “intermediate-high” level. Yelena Kirilenko – the head of the Russian language group at Roscosmos’ cosmonaut training center outlined in an interview with Russia Beyond why it’s important for foreign astronauts to speak the language. If you’ve ever been to Russia you know how important it is to be able to speak their language, and due to safety concerns and the somewhat high-risk technology involved, it really helps to be able to communicate and understand people. This means that astronauts almost always launch with Russians, are in Russia, or need to get around (bilingual) Russian speaking Kazakhstan. SpaceX is expected to eventually give American and other astronauts the ability to do so once again, but for now it’s all about Russia. 5 Since 2011 and the end of the US Space Shuttle program the world has really had no other option for actually getting people to space. This is due to several factors, the largest of which is almost definitely that American and other non-Russian space-faring folks can only really launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan – leased by the Russian government’s aerospace program Roscosmos. 4 I’m not sure if lingua franca is the term to use for a crew of 6-8 people, but I guess it fits since they’re essentially their own little …thing, floating up there. While the lingua franca of the ISS is English, and all astronauts are required to speak it no matter which country they’re from, they also need to be capable of speaking Russian at least relatively well. and astronauts not only undergo extreme physical and mental training, they’re also more or less required to speak Russian. “cosmos” vs “astro” is the difference between the universe and the stars. What language do they speak on the ISS right now?Īnyway, for the time being, and since the 70s, humans have been stuck in low Earth orbit (LEO), namely inhabiting the International Space Station (ISS).Ĭosmonauts 3 That’s what Russian astronauts are called. I’m not going to get into too many details about how, why, when, etc, because you didn’t come here for SpaceX, you came here for languages: I recommend checking it out if you’re interested in this stuff and have about 2 hours to read one of the most epic blog articles in history. Guilty as charged.how this is supposed to work, and it’s pretty inspiring. ![]() It sounds a bit crazy at first glance, but superblogger Tim Urban outlines extremely well 2 I absolutely stole the digression box idea from this guy. SpaceX’s ultimate goal is to put over a million people on Mars by the end of the century. Thankfully it didn’t explode – we weren’t sure. Mars is in the wrong place right now so that’s not really possible, but this is still possibly the most extravagant marketing tactic ever employed. It has been launched roughly towards the orbit of Mars.ġ By this I mean they are launching it to roughly Mars’ distance from the Sun, not literally lobbing into Mars orbit. The “test” payload (because you never launch something truly valuable like a satellite on a brand new rocket) is Musk’s personal “midnight cherry red” Tesla sportscar. It’s success could usher in a new era of heavy lift rockets that could eventually help people leave Earth’s orbit – something nobody has really done since the Apollo Program’s lunar landings ended in the early 70s. On Tuesday Feb 6th, entrepreneur billionaire Elon Musk’s private space launch company SpaceX launched its biggest (so far) rocket – the Falcon Heavy – on its first test flight and the world was pretty much in awe. I n the spirit of February’s massively successful maiden SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch, I wanted to throw together a short mini-post about space and language.īefore we get into the languagey stuff, I feel like I need to briefly explain what’s going on.
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