Последние тайны СССР – Проект Марс 88

For almost 20 years, the taiga cosmodrome was the most active in that, somewhat different, world. Almost 1 500 rocket launches – 40 % of all the world’s space starts.

And all that happened far from the civilization, in the harsh conditions of the almost extreme North.

And preparation of a rocket for the start is nothing like the morning warm-up and cleaning the car of the snow before driving to work, even when you fling out at –20 °C without outdoor clothes and your car would not open, and even if it does after several attempts, it would not start…It’s cold and nasty, you are short of time and you have to run for a spare battery or get assistance from those whose car started or try to push it… and how can you push a car that weighs 300 tons and is 50 meters long?

In winter there are no mosquitoes or even more disgusting gnat.

And in the summer the wood is very beautiful and there are a lot of aspen mushrooms with red caps– but it’s difficult to pick them because of those that are absent in winter…

And it's not everywhere that you can pick these mushrooms.

Looking in the black silent space that surrounded the spaceship, with bright white spots of an endless multitude of stars, it was for some reason these red mushroom caps which no one needed that Andrey recollected.

Andrey was an onboard engineer of the manned spaceship of М-88 project and at the same time – a USSR KGB officer. He was not included in the crew because the omnipotent Committee was looking for CIS or MI-6 spies even in the space or because he had to shoot down, for example, the crew captain under certain circumstances.

There was even no gun or any weapon on the spaceship at all.

It was just a personal wish of General Secretary… In the course of one of rare meetings with the project Coordinator he suddenly said: servicemen, scientists, doctors – all of them were in space, we sometimes even take foreigners there! And we have never included a single KGB officer in the crew!

The Coordinator was a bit surprised, but answered: Yuri Vladimirovich, that’s an interesting thought, but it would be better if he had some other profession besides being an officer.

The crew is almost complete – there is a place for an onboard engineer, and considering the peculiarities of the spaceship – we need a specialist on compact nuclear power systems.