Sauna Suits In Space Travel

While space travel has stopped taking giant leaps, a Russian cosmonaut is setting records to help advance science, writes Robyn Dixon.

Yelena Kondakova is not a typical Russian woman. She cannot cook; she drives a car; and right now she is hurtling through space. After about a month in space, she has already been there longer than any woman. The question I could have asked Ms Kondakova as she orbited far above earth in the Mir space station was about her amazing hairdo, which had so much vertical spring it that it looked a miracle of weightlessness.

That question would have been in line with the Russian media incredulity about a woman in space - and the rash of Russian press articles about female hygiene, sex in space, who does the dishes in space, women's caprice, and whether Ms Kondakova wears perfume and make-up in space.

So, bearing in mind the sexist culture from which she has been elevated, my question to Yelena Kondakova was if there were any real differences between the capacity and the temperament of women and men in space.

Mr. Victor Blagov, the space flight program’s deputy director, said Ms Kondakova worked normally, otherwise she would never have been selected to break the record for the longest space flight by a woman.

Ms Kondakova, the engineer on the space station, who is paid $US60 a day after tax on the mission, does not see any significant differences. They don't know the difference between a male and a female cosmonaut. In our emotions and mood there are no differences. Of course men are stronger and during the physical training they took on a bigger physical burden than them. She said she took longer to adjust to weightlessness - a sensation not of floating but of constantly falling - than the male crew.

Just as it is difficult to predict which individuals will be hit by space sickness, it is hard to predict those who will be worse affected by bone diminution. The US has sent about 20 women into space - two of whom died in the Challenger catastrophe. Only three Russian women have been up in 31 years. The first, Valentina Tereshkova, was up for about a day and was so sick they thought of bringing her back to earth early. The second, Svetlana Sovitskaya, the daughter of a famous air marshal, spent 19 days in space 10 years ago.

The papers have been full of the special arrangements made for Ms Kondakova on the space mission. She gets a litre of warm water to wash in daily - the men use moist towels. The space station contains a special dry rubber sauna suit to which each crew member retires for 30 minutes of the week. Ms Kondakova has her own bedroom.

Mr John Pike, the director of the Space Policy Project of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, explains what really happens for the first few days in space: You barf. They don't like to show that. It's one of the little secrets of the space program that roughly half of the people who go into space become sick as a dog, wish they would die. It's like falling. It's literally just like some people get motion sickness when they're riding on a rollercoaster. Although it was impossible to predict who would be affected, generally women seemed to adjust better.