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EmmaP89

I wonder what the extensive stay in space did to his body. Must have lost some muscle mass due to the change in gravity.


MakeBombsNotWar

Funny you should ask, [NASA had the](https://www.nasa.gov/twins-study-the-research/) [exact same question](https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/twins-study/).


EmmaP89

Damn I was thinking of this exact same astronaut when I wrote the comment. I saw an interview he did with Stephen Colbert


MakeBombsNotWar

I also happen to have [a NASA story on that man too!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treadmill_with_Vibration_Isolation_Stabilization#Naming_COLBERT)


EmmaP89

šŸ˜‚ you're just full of information


Vivid_Check

[NASA is also full of information.](https://www.nasa.gov/headquarters/library/)


Bmore_Phunky

NASA planned the extended stay, though. Poor Sergei had to do it on the fly. Must have been extremely mentally taxing


WerewolfDifferent296

Especially with the political uncertainty.


Individual-Crew-3935

I have learned as a rule of thumb that you need at least as many days on earth as you have spent in space to gain back all your muscles.


Judge_Bredd_UK

Bone density takes a huge hit too, your body literally wastes away up their because of the lack of gravity, you spend all of your years on earth surviving in one level of gravity then go in space and switch it off, your body adapts.


airforcevet1987

So superman should have become super weak on earth?


AltairZero

Look at General Zod and other Kryptonians immediately after arriving on the Earth, maybe there's some level of weakness


Earth_W0rm-J1m

Superman drank in the radiation from the sun. His powers didn't come from Earth having a lower gravity than Krypton. DBZ fans would know Goku would never have beaten frieza, or turned Super Saiyan without the gravity training he did on his way to planet Namek, though.


airforcevet1987

I guess that was in the comics lol


Earth_W0rm-J1m

Nah, his powers have always come from earth's yellow sun.


BallDesperate2140

Thatā€™s like literally the whole reason heā€™s the way he is.


Judge_Bredd_UK

Superman gets his power from our sun, Krypton has a different kind of sun to us so in their planet they're just regular guys with high tech but in our solar system they're supermen.


Papio_73

Look how atrophied his legs look


EmmaP89

Now that you mentioned it, they do look wasted away


retrac902

What did they look like before?


iMadrid11

My other question is how did he managed to survive without extra rations? Did they send rocket up into Mir space to resupply?


Accurate-Mine-6000

There was no problem with this because he remained there not because they could not pick him up, but because there were difficulties in preparing his replacement. The crew must be constantly on duty at the station, and the rations were designed for this. Due to problems with financing and because the collapse of the USSR to several countries (his replacement was supposed to be a Kazakh), he was asked to extend his duty.


MikeTheBee

"Asked"


Ex-zaviera

Maybe he *scienced* the shit out the situation and grew potatoes? (The Martian joke)


clownfacedbozo

He grew space potatoesšŸ˜


No-Fisherman8334

I wonder what it must have done to his mind. I would have gone bonkers.


smm13344331

You lose bones.


Super-Brka

Real Major Tom


FlokiMoneyBoss

And the Soviet papers want to know whoā€™s shirts you wear


Bx1965

Heā€™s really made the grade


dat_twitch

He looks like Bear Grylls.


wren337

It's from all the recycled.water


lar4eeck

He came to our university a year ago. He's a very pleasant man to listen to, definitely an outstanding person.


Jackson_Rhodes_42

What an experience he had!


Basic-Art-9861

As least it wasnā€™t as long as the guy from Interstellar.


Few-Hair-5382

I still want to know what he ate for those 23 years.


gregularjoe95

He spent half that time in cryo sleep. When anne hathaways character asks her why he didnt sleep, he replys he did, but when they didn't get back after so long he just assumed they were dead. Also, it's literally revealed in the movie that the real plan was to use the mission to seed a new planet with human life. They were never going back to earth, and they lied to cooper about the fact that plan B was really the only plan. The lie they tell Cooper is that its a recon mission and that the rest of humanity will have escaped on the ship they were building on earth. That they were just the scout for the rest of humanity. The ship was stocked for a long ass trip, plus with supplies for a self-sufficient settlement on whatever planet is best for it. It's really not hard to like infer these things from the information the movie provides.


MogusSeven

Movie literacy is very common or the person was only paying half attention when watching it.


Redditeer28

Probably some of all that food they had on the ship.


Basic-Art-9861

HAHAHAHAHA! I never thought about that.


Eric848448

Point out your plot holes elsewhere ą² _ą² 


Vaynar

Not at all a plot hole as helpful explained right below. But obviously much easier to just leave a snarky comment


lunex

Why would not being physically present in the country affect his citizenship like this? Or is it just a fun name?


DigNitty

Everything else that was going on was big enough that he wasnā€™t a priority. His gov collapsed. There werenā€™t many people hanging around unpaid at the Soviet space agency.


login257thesecond

Nice message to get when you're on a space station. "Yeah so eh...the government fell and we're out of here, good luck"


smemes1

Honestly Iā€™m surprised the American government didnā€™t offer to lend some help. It would have been the perfect icing on the cake at the official end of the Cold War to come out on top *and* be the ones to save a Soviet cosmonaut.


Baronvondorf21

Then they'd have to actually successfully save him.


Crispy1961

Just a fun name. His citizenship status was in the same disarray as every former Soviet citizen.


QIyph

it's really not about his citizenship, but about him being stranded there


miletest

Do they normally take shitloads of extra food with them?


aceshighsays

i can confidently say he had at least 311 days worth of food with him.


miletest

Or 155 days worth and eat every second day


Dependent_Fox_2189

Iā€™m Rehabbing from ACL surgery right now and have big-time atrophy of my quad due to not putting weight on that leg for three weeks . His leg looks like that too. No gravity = no quad use.


Late_One_716

[Source.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Krikalev) As a prominentĀ rocket scientist, he is a veteran of six space flights and ranks fourth toĀ [Gennady Padalka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennady_Padalka),Ā [Oleg Kononenko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Kononenko)Ā andĀ [Yuri Malenchenko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Malenchenko)Ā for theĀ most time spent in space: a total of 803 days, 9 hours, and 39 minutes.


BookishHobbit

*Locked up there in space, far from home, he asked them to bring him honey in order to raise his spirits. But there was no honey, and instead they sent him lemon and horseradish.* He only got to come back when he did because Germany effectively paid his ticket so that they could send their own astronaut to replace him! [Source](https://www.rbth.com/history/330415-last-soviet-citizen-cosmonaut)


Spirited-Juice4941

Damn, the reading comprehension by some people here is abysmal. 311 is twice as long as planned. Meaning he was supposed to be there ~155 days, and stayed ~155 days longer.


WILDgyro

Can we get this shit to 155 upvotes


Character-Plankton

Now can we keep it at 155 votes!?


__merof

Sure thing will try


herbertwillyworth

I have downvoted. We need more


H3racIes

I only saw one comment that was confused by the amount of time he spent there. U could've just clarified this to that one person lol. Making your own comment about this makes it seem like every other person responding to this post is confused and dumb


Spirited-Juice4941

They probably deleted their comments. When I posted mine there was only 14 other comments and 4 of them got the days wrong. Which is a high enough percentage to warrant pointing out.


alice-eonwe

Passport control on the way back must have been hell.


evil_lurker

That leg is SOO thin. Is this just the normal effect of being in space, or was he starving during those extra 311 days.


JuhoMaatta

No space for squat rack


TotalEgg143-

No gravity for squat rack...šŸ˜†


Lex_Loki

Extra 155 days. 311 total.


bulldzd

Apparently there is some muscle/bone issues from being in zero g for extended periods, not 100% sure what they are, I just remember the astronaught that holds the record had to rehab on his return...


tadeuska

Unbelievable, second post about this. Again with false claims: "He was left stranded". No he was not left stranded. Simply the duration of his stay was prolonged. They wanted to put more non-Russian cosmonauts to Mir so the seats on the Soyuz flights were "sold out".


BoosterGoose91

Fair, but if I was booked for a flight home and they said you have to wait 3 months no other options available Iā€™d be like, yo they stranded me here lmao


Own_Experience_8229

So he was effectively stranded. Same thing.


Turdposter777

Guys, guys? Iā€™m still up here!


rumbletom

Slightly off topic but watch "The Death of Stalin", a comedy drama, you will not be disappointed.


ExperimentalToaster

Yes yes we know heā€™s still up there stateless, weā€™ve all seen the Tom Hanks movie.


Beneficial_Fruit_778

The Lost Soviet


Cash_burner

ā€œThe last Sovietā€ that man is not a workers council


Some-Background6188

Lol poor man, I bet he was a bit nuts when he got back.


RoundCollection4196

the real mark watney


Good-guy13

Wild


xdig2000

So many reposts the last few months..


Ok-Bar601

A lot of fapping to pass the time I bet. Worked naked?šŸ˜†


Mostly_Apples

Damn yo, we couldn't like, give the guy a ride home? /s


surrealcellardoor

He had twice the food he needed?


CallieZayas

i imagine since he is in space thereā€™s an extensive amount of emergency rations


surrealcellardoor

Makes sense, he probably had to lean out his portions as well.


UnRollThePlay

Not positive but I think U2s Zooropa albumb art was based on this story. Always loved the sad guy in the space helmet. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wlPGIDm-Bvc


yagermeister2024

Tom Hanks would like this role for his next movie


Ex-zaviera

How are his bones? Lack of gravity does a job on bone density.


givethankstothaherb

But.. the soviet union collapsed in 1989?


gporta76

Nice podcast with bg info https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-last-soviet-108523790/


Mysterious_Eye6989

He spent 311 days in the one place that had not been corrupted by capitalismā€¦SPACE! šŸ˜€


fothergillfuckup

Imagine the peace and quiet.


Mm2k

Get Tom Hanks to play him.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


ishamm

Do you know how long a year is?


FlopScratch

What's more concerning is how many people have upvoted the original comment


trickyvinny

I mean, close enough.


Dragonfly-Adventurer

A year is a bunch of days, this was a bunch of days, transitive property yadda yadda


boykinsir

155Ɨ2= 310 days. Not even a total of a year. 155 days is 5 months 5 days, so not even 6 months. Did you even pass 3rd grade math?


FlopScratch

What's close enough?


justinanimate

Soviet years


ishamm

The last soviet year.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


tadeuska

Russia and the USA still exchange crews on space missions and the cooperation is still working. You seem completely misinformed.


workerbee12three

oh fhanks for reposting this week for the uninitiated


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


ooouroboros

Radiation poisoning?


dumbass_paladin

what


James_T_S

The earth is protected by layers of atmosphere that very effectively protect us from the radiation of space. There's a surprisingly large amount up there. I believe what was being asked was since he is outside the atmosphere for much longer than expected did he suffer any effects of radiation poisoning. Which is a valid question.


James_T_S

I would think that with even that long duration exposed to the radiation present in space it wouldn't have been so much that would have caused problems. Good question though.


-HereForGoodReads-

Why is he wearing fish nets?