Former US Astronaut Culbertson Shares Some Funny Memories Of Working With Russians

COLORADO SPRINGS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th April, 2023) Former Astronaut Frank Culbertson in an interview with Sputnik has shared some funny moments of his work with Russian colleagues, including an awkward moment during the Shuttle Mir program meeting when the two teams meant different things by the word "patch."

"When I was helping manage the Shuttle Mir program, which was a predecessor to the space station, we were having a meeting with the Russian team and our team, it was an early meeting and we were talking about all kinds of things that we had to have for the program,"� Culbertson said. "The Americans started talking about, that we have to decide on a patch for the program."

Culbertson noted that they were working through an interpreter and remembered that the Russian team looked very confused and concerned on why'd they worry about a patch now.

"We were trying to talk about well, we need to have a patch to unite the team and so what's wrong that we need a patch?" he went on to say. "I knew enough Russian. I was listening to the interpreter and instead of 'emblem' they were talking about a patch on the spacecraft for a leak. And so we were talking about two totally different things."

"And that would happen every once in a while. But we laughed about it later, of course," he added. "It tells you how important the interpreter's work to both sides is to make sure we had exactly the right term."

Another funny moment that still makes Culbertson laugh occurred when he and Vladimir Dezhurov were doing a spacewalk.

" I was trying to attach some cables to the outside of the space station. Vladimir was trying to stabilize me by holding the top of my spacesuit and the people on the ground were listening," he said. "We were talking a little bit in English, a little bit in Russian and they had interpreters. At one point I said (in Russian) 'Vladimir, please hold me closer,'" he said, 'Sure, Frank.'"

"I just meant closer to the spacecraft," he added. "Particularly the women on my team thought that was really funny.

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When asked whether his interaction and collaboration with Russians broke any stereotypes about Russian people, like drinking a lot of vodka, Culbertson noted, "I had taken a little bit of Russian language training. And I had also read a lot about Russian culture and all before I even started in the space program."

"So I knew that there was propaganda on both sides but what I found out was that the Russian people are just as caring, they find family values just as important as we do," he said. "They want to live good lives. They're generous people. Yes, they have vodka. But we have beer. They're just good people and hard workers and they put up with a lot and have dealt with problems over the years and I have a lot of respect for them for that."

Culbertson also shared with Sputnik that the Yuri Gagarin's flight was very significant to him and was an inspiration to everyone to go to space.

"My first flight was STS-38 In 1990... I was very excited to be going into space because I had wanted to do that since before Yuri flew in space, actually. But he was an inspiration to all of us," he said. "I was very excited to be leaving Earth, to be riding a machine that had so much power and was going so fast, but I was really looking forward to seeing the Earth from space and to being weightless. And both of those things were better than I expected."

Culbertson said that he remembers when Gagarin flew very well.

"That had a lot of significance to me. And I remember thinking, Okay, well the Russians have done it. We need to do it again too," he said. "Both countries were making lots and lots of progress. I followed what was happening on both sides. I was in school, in college for a lot of that, but I paid a lot of attention to it."

"Yuri was an amazing person," he added. "I remember seeing his pictures and hearing all the stories and then when I started training in Russia, I learned even more about him and his past an