RETURNING TO EARTH: THE SOVIET LUNAR ISOLATION UNIT

When Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins returned from the moon, television viewers were amazed to see the returning heroes wrapped up in biological suits with masks and unceremoniously ushered into what looked like a camper caravan. The purpose was a serious one: to ensure that they were not contaminated with lunar soil that might in turn affect other Earthlings. The caravan was transferred to Houston where the astronauts spent the rest of their three-week quarantine.

The USSR developed a similar series of precautions and its own isolation unit. Lunar soil samples were to be received in the Vernadsky Institute of Geological and Analytical Chemistry, but a small lunar isolation unit was built in Star Town. In the Vernadsky institute, a two-floor room was set aside with two cylindrical glovebox units, each with four large viewing ports.

The opportunity to use the Soviet isolation unit came in 1970, following the mission of Soyuz 9. This was a two-man spaceflight designed to push back the then Soviet endurance record of five days and pave the way for the first Soviet space station, Salyut, due in 1970. The cosmonauts chosen, veteran Andrian Nikolayev and new­comer Vitally Sevastianov, spent 17 days in the small Soyuz cabin in June 1970.

Soon after landing, the cosmonauts were transferred to the isolation unit in Star Town by way of Vnukuvo Airport and not let out till 2 July, two weeks later: the same period of isolation as a moon journey would require. Flight debriefing was carried out behind glass partitions: telephones and microphones were used. The isolation complex had probably cost a lot to build and this was the only use it was to get. Soviet Weekly tried to explain:

The isolation isn’t because offears that Nikolayev and Sevastianov may have brought back strange diseases from outer space! Indeed the precautions are for the opposite reason. Doctors consider it possible that protracted space flight may lower normal immunities and they are therefore making sure that the spacemen are protected from earthbound infection until they have acclimatized.

Although Soviet spaceflights subsequently grew longer and longer, the facility was never used again. In reality, there was an element of farce about the whole episode. The Soviet Weekly explanation was the exact opposite of the truth, for the ultimate purpose of the unit was precisely to prevent infection from space-borne diseases. The real aim of the unit was never publicly revealed and we do not know what became of it subsequently. The theory behind the need for Soyuz 9 isolation had already been

completely undermined anyway at the point of landing. Nikolayev and Sevastianov were in weak condition when they touched down and had to be assisted from their cabin. Pictures released many years later showed them being helped and comforted, and if there had been any plans to rush them into biological protection suits, they must have been quickly abandoned. Had they indeed carried the cosmic plague with them, the entire recovery team would have been quickly infected.