Zero-gravity birthday for ISS crew member (but don’t uncork the bubbly!)
Published: 09 August, 2009, 13:07
TAGS: Anniversary, Space, SciTech
Today, the youngest crew member of the International Space Station, Roman Romanenko, celebrates his 38th birthday. RT and our viewers congratulate the Russian cosmonaut.
The chief of the space team onboard the ISS, Gennady Padalka, told ITAR-TASS that usually when one of the crewmembers has a birthday the whole team “gathers around a party table, congratulates the one whose birthday it is and presents a gift.”
In addition to the gifts from his colleagues, Roman will get parcels that were delivered onboard the Progress cargo ship with an attached notice that read, “Do not open before August 9.”
The holiday menu will include fresh fruit and chocolates. Alcohol, however, is strictly forbidden.
The best present, however, will certainly be an opportunity to talk to friends and family during today’s communication session.
A second-generation cosmonaut
Roman Romanenko was born in Shelkovo, a town on the outskirts of Moscow, on August 9, 1971. He grew up in Star City, the very same place where Russia’s Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center trains the most talented and persevering pilots to become cosmonauts.
Having graduated from high school in Star City back in 1986, Romanenko was enrolled into the Leningrad Suvorov military school. He continued his education at Chernigov High Air Force School, and graduated in 1992 as a pilot engineer.
 Cosmonaut Roman Romanenko / spaceflight.nasa.gov |
Air Force Major Roman Romanenko was selected as a cosmonaut candidate in December 1997 whereupon he returned to Star City. In November 1999, he was qualified as a Test Cosmonaut.
Then, for the next long decade, he could only dream about his first voyage from the comfort of Earth, where he served as a backup commander. Finally, he was picked as a flight engineer for the 20th expedition, which left for the ISS on May 27, 2009.
Roman Romanenko will stay on the ISS together with Commander Gennady Padalka and engineers Robert Thirsk, Frank De Winne and Michael Barratt until October 2009.
The work of the youngest space traveler in orbit hardly differs from those of others.
Roman controls functioning of equipment designed to prevent natural disasters, and coordinates experiments involving solar radiation, which is vital science for future interplanetary voyages.
He also takes photo surveys of Earth’s surface, and even participates in unloading Progress transport ships with fresh water, food and scientific equipment.
The son of a former Soviet cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Yury Romanenko, Roman is the third second-generation cosmonaut after Sergey Volkov and Richard Garriott.
Roman is married to Yulia Romanenko and they have a son.
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