Spacefarers are chosen from those with an exceptionally strong scientific background - but that hasn't stopped a large number of superstitions and modern-day folklore springing up around space programs, including...
- Planting a Tree on the Avenue of Cosmonauts
- Watching the 1970 Film "White Sun of the Desert"
- Starring in Mock Movie Posters
- Cards, Coins, Art and Beans
- The Talisman
- Marking the Shuttle Bus Tires
 |
| There's a lot to go wrong - having a few good luck rituals is understandable! (NASA) |
Planting a Tree on the Avenue of Cosmonauts
This one is both is both a symbol of hope and a grim reminder. There's a leafy avenue of trees at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, with each tree representing a mission or the cosmonauts that comprised it... whether they made it back to Earth or not.
It's become a tradition for crew members to plant a sapling before the mission, ensuring that they take their place amongst other star-faring explorers - even if the mission should prove a disaster.
Watching the 1970 Film "White Sun of the Desert"
Another tradition from Baikonur Cosmodrome is watching a Soviet-era film called "White Sun of the Desert." It's a mixture of action comedy and drama that sees a member of the Red Army making friends with an unlikely ally and being assigned to protect the erstwhile harem of a local warlord.
The film has seemingly nothing to do with space, but each crew watches the film before the mission. The tradition have originated with the Soyuz 12 crew who watched the film before leaving Earth - the Soyuz 11 mission ended in disaster, but 12 proved a success and the movie seems to have been given the credit. Watching the film became a good-luck ritual for cosmonauts... and given the lack of further Soyuz fatalities, perhaps there's something to it!
Starring in Mock Movie Posters
NASA has it's own movie related tradition - each mission gets a film-style poster, which sometimes directly riff off a pre-existing film.
Of particular note is the poster for expedition 45, which depicted the mission crew as jedi knights from the Star Wars franchise... complete with brown robes over cream suits, action poses and glowing lightsabers. Other entries are themed after Star Trek, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and even The Matrix!
 |
| Those back on Earth have some rituals as well... (NASA) |
Cards, Coins, Art and Beans
Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that the support crews who'll get astronauts off the ground also get involved in their superstitions. One particular tradition from NASA requires a card game between representatives of the astronauts and the support crew. As a superstition, the "rules" tend to vary from source to source. One common theory is that play should continue until the the mission commander loses, which allows him to "spend" any bad luck before the dangerous main event. Even the game can change - poker, blackjack, high-card or the mysterious "Possum Fargo" have served as this bad-karma earthing rod. You can see the Artemis II crew performing the ritual here.
It's also considered bad luck for spacefarers to see the rocket before the launch date. It's traditional for cosmonauts to stay away and perform other good-luck rituals while Soyuz rockets are brought to the launch pad, but technicians and spectators sometimes place coins on the train tracks to be flattened by the passing rocket. Doing so is said to bring luck to the mission (and provides a handy souvenir.)
Another Russian ritual is "branding" the rocket. As the rocket is fueled, the supercooled liquid produces frost on the side - which allows a technician to draw letters, initials or even a full name on the craft. Supposedly this tradition was skipped in 1980... and an accident during fueling left 47 dead.
There's also a NASA tradition of celebrating a successful launch with a round of baked beans.
The Talisman
There's another ritual common to both astronauts and cosmonauts - it's a soft toy (often selected by the mission commander or their family) known as the talisman, and it serves as both a morale-boosting mascot and a gravitational canary.
The tradition of zero-gravity indicators hails back to Yuri Gagarin, who brought a small doll with him to see it drift in zero-g. It was adopted by other space agencies when the toys proved an effective low-tech way to tell astronauts (and those watching on Earth) that a spacecraft was in zero-gravity... since the object would start to drift in the capsule.
 |
| Biology can be inconvenient in a spacesuit... (NASA) |
Marking the Shuttle Bus Tires
There's a somewhat bizarre tradition performed by cosmonauts on the way to launch. Despite being suited up (and with absorptive undergarments to prevent the need to unzip in flight) males will traditionally stop the shuttle bus as it heads towards the launch pad and urinate on the back right hand tire.Allegedly this tradition dates back to Yuri Gagarin, who didn't have the luxuries of a modern spacesuit and wanted to avoid the complications of mid-flight urination (you really don't need it floating around in zero-g.) It became a good-luck ritual thanks to his success, and even female cosmonauts have been known to bring a pre-filled bottle of urine to join in!
Interestingly, cosmonauts are also said to visit the office of Yuri Garagin (it's been preserved as something of a shrine) to sign the guestbook... and ask Garagin's ghost for permission to fly!
Thanks for reading - for more, try...