Romanians have ‘low chances to fly into outer space again’

On 14 May, we celebrate 30 years since Dumitru Prunariu made the first flight into outer space on board of the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 40 and the Saliut 6 orbital station together with the Soviet astronaut Leonid Popov.

‘The chances for a Romanian astronaut to travel into outer space in the near future are extremely low’, Dumitru Prunariu said in an interview for Radio Romania Actualităţi.

Until this year, an average of seven astronauts used to be sent outer space on board of the American spacecrafts and three on board of the Russian Soyuz ships. Both types of spacecrafts carried also international mix crews.

‘At present the only means to send international teams into outer space is on board of the Russian Soyuz rockets because the Americans, following some inconsistencies in planning the next steps in manned astronautics, will remain without spacecrafts this year’, Dumitru Prunariu said.

Video: An American and two Russian astronauts returned on board of the Soyuz spacecraft after several months spent on board the International Outer space Station. Source: Reuters.

U.S. cosmonauts will fly into outer space via the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

‘Under these circumstances, three people will be sent into outer space every time a spacecraft is launched, usually, a Russian, an American and a foreigner.’

Europeans are running out of people ready to fly into outer space, because it lasts a year and a half, maybe two years, to train an astronaut.

‘For Romania it will be difficult to send an astronaut into outer space, because we do not have direct contracts with U.S. A and Russia in comparison with other European countries that benefit from this status’, Dumitru Prunariu added.

On 20 January 2011, Romania became a full member of the European Space Agency and has the right to participate in the selection for European astronauts.

‘Two years ago, out of 8400 candidates, only six were selected to begin preparing for outer space’, the former Romanian cosmonaut said.

‘Thus, the chances for a Romanian to be selected are reduced’, Dumitru Prunariu said.

‘Assuming that the next selection will be in four or five years and six astronauts will be selected out of 8500, imagine which are the chances for one of them to be Romanian and if they do select a Romanian astronaut it will be at least ten years before it will actually be sent into outer space’, the only Romanian cosmonaut said.

Dumitru Prunariu was decorated by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during a ceremony celebrating 50 years since the first human space flight made by Yuri Gagarin on 12 April 1961.

In the interview conducted by Alexander Beleavschi, the cosmonaut Dumitru Prunariu also talked about interplanetary flights, but also about by asteroids and how dangerous they can be.

Audio: Interview of the evening.


Translated by: Denisse-Meda Bucura
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University