posted 09-18-2005 03:39 PM            

For example: designing the crew patch; launch day cake; post-landing walk-around (just writing those has triggered a flood of others). Many of these traditions seem to have originated as, or evolved into, photo opportunities.

Has anyone succeeded where I have failed, and listed all known astronaut (and cosmonaut) traditions? I would greatly appreciate a pointer to any such listing.

posted 09-18-2005 07:46 PM               

Other cosmonaut traditions before launch:

• Visiting the interments in the Kremlin wall of Gagarin, Komarov, Volkov, Patsayev, Dobrovolski and I believe Korolyov.

• Touring the Avenue of the Cosmonauts, a grove behind the crew quarters at the Baikonur; each tree represents an individual who has launched from the cosmodrome.

• Signing the door to their room in the crew quarters at Baikonur.

• Signing a poster of the Soyuz rocket on the pad at the Gagarin Memorial Museum in Baikonur.

• Not attending the rollout and erection of the Soyuz rocket on the pad.

posted 09-19-2005 11:18 PM            

From "Titan" by Stephen Baxter:

There were more rituals, as they headed out of the building towards the bus that would take them to the pad. There was a card game called Possum's Fargo that they had to play, for instance, with a couple of the techs. Rosenberg couldn't believe his eyes. Here they were, the five of them, like huge insects in their glaring orange pressure suits, standing around a table to play what seemed like, to him, a kid's version of poker. But - rigid tradition had it - they couldn't leave, until the commander, Angel in this case, had lost a hand. It took six hands.

posted 09-20-2005 12:59 AM               

• Rookie cosmonauts don't sign autographs outside of those dictated by other traditions (i.e. the door, Gagarin's guest book)

• The "Cosmonaut's song" night before launch — started with Vostok 3/4 but I'm not sure that has continued, although the song is still popular among cosmonauts, and still played in space. I have full versions of the lyrics (Russian and English) if anyone is interested. "I believe my friends caravans of rockets will carry us from star to star..." the refrain goes.

• The Boeing Bench Review - often a photo-op.

• The crew photo.

• The signing of the supplemental life insurance policy, next of kin documentation.

• Lazy-Boy recliners during the suit-up.

posted 10-17-2005 09:53 PM               

A military officer is returning home after WWII and all he wants is to go home, yet he is persuaded to escort a chieftain's wives somewhere as a favor. The wives begin to fight because they think their protector has designated one of them the primary wife. I guess the message to the cosmonauts is if something can go wrong, it will go wrong.

There is also a tradition at Johnson Space Center to ring a ship's bell at the welcome home reception for an ISS crew. The original tradition was to have someone from the previous crew welcome back the next crew. This held up for a few flights, but has become anyone from a previous ISS crew.

posted 03-02-2008 06:38 PM               

There was a card game called Possum's Fargo that they had to play, for instance, with a couple of the techs.

posted 05-28-2008 05:09 AM               

It may seem incredible that in the world of manned spaceflight, of high-tech mission control and protocols for everything, there is a body of folklore, superstition, and tradition that is followed by each and every crewmember as if performing a sacred rite. Invocation of spirits of the dead, holy water, lucky card games, talismans, ritual words to be uttered at certain times -- it reads like the initiation into some secret lodge.

posted 08-23-2010 06:48 PM               

Space shuttle astronaut Robert "Hoot" Gibson, an ex-Navy fighter pilot, recalls that on launch day, the schedule gives the crew about 15 minutes between suiting up and heading to the pad. During that period, the astronauts would stand around a high table in the suit-up area, joined by the Chief of the Astronaut Office and the Director of Flight Operations. A deck of cards would appear, and they would play a homegrown game called Possum Fargo. Five-card hands were dealt. No betting, no further cards. Just a rapid deal. Whoever had the lowest hand won the round.

"It's like poker, 180 degrees out," says Gibson. "The lowest you could get was 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 [a 6 gave you a straight]. That was the winningest hand." The crew could not leave until the commander of the mission won a hand — for good luck. "You were not ready to walk out of there until he won," says Gibson. He doesn't know who created the game or who named it. But he played it on every one of his five missions.

Four-time shuttle astronaut Tom Jones has a slightly different recollection of Possum Fargo. "We watched the commander play the card game in the suit-up room against the chief of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate," says Jones. "Rest of the crew does not play, and I don't know the game. My opinion is that the kind of people I crewed with did not get there by being superstitious, so it's a trait bred out of the astronaut corps for the most part." But he admits that the commander had to get that low hand before launch. "Once you lose, you can go out to the pad," says Jones. Or win, he means, with that lousy hand.

posted 08-24-2010 09:02 AM               

He did it just as a way of clearing his mind, while at the same time putting the word in just in case the engine gods were listening. He did not get into specifics but I took that to mean a sort of pep talk to the engines 'come on guys... work with me" sort of thing. He asked if it sounded crazy but to be honest, but it made sense to me, anything one can do to help.

posted 08-24-2010 09:59 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by pokey:
I thought there was a cosmonaut tradition of watching "White Sun of the Desert"...

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posted 09-01-2010 05:27 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by kyra:
Rookie cosmonauts don't sign autographs outside of those dictated by other traditions...

---

Initially, it was only the cosmonauts from Energiya who wouldn't sign before their first flight. They would say it was a tradition, but it was more superstition and not everyone stuck to it.

Several Energiya people did sign for me (albeit in person, not through the mail). Of those, Kononenko, Yurchikhin, and others have since flown in the meantime. Several others are assigned to a mission.

Military cosmonauts only began following this "tradition" in recent years. Several dozen of them signed for me (again: in person) prior to their first flight or flight assignment.

posted 03-05-2011 12:56 PM               

• Affixing the crew patch on the door frame of the O&C Building where they walk out to the pad. The patch goes in a few other places around the O&C.

• Sharing a bottle of wine at the Beach House the night before launch and signing the bottle

• A new launch flight director (controller?) gets their tie cut after working their inaugural launch.

• The Chief Astronaut recites the Astronauts Prayer "God help you if you screw up" to the crew in the Astrovan on the way to the pad (I think John Young started this)

• Astronaut children draw on a white board while families wait for launch. This is later framed.

• Crew members write their initials in frost on an O2 line on the pad before entering the vehicle.

posted 01-24-2015 08:32 AM               

No traditional sour balls for the launch crew. Looking back now, maybe we should have.

posted 05-21-2020 12:35 AM               

From trees to tags, NASA astronauts start traditions before first SpaceX launch

The first NASA astronauts set to launch from American soil in almost a decade are laying the foundation for the new pre-flight traditions that U.S. commercial spacecraft crews will follow as they prepare to lift off into space.

Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday (May 20), a week ahead of their scheduled launch on SpaceX's first Dragon spacecraft to fly with a crew to the International Space Station.

"We feel somewhat responsible to continue some of these really neat traditions that both the [Russian] Soyuz crews have had for many years and the shuttle crews have had. And then maybe come up with a few of our own," said Hurley. "As we go through this journey, we will certainly share some more of those."

posted 11-11-2021 12:36 PM               

NASA SpaceX Crew-3 mission astronauts play a game while inside the suit-up room in the Astronaut Crew Quarters at Kennedy Space Center’s Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building on launch day, Nov. 10, 2021.

posted 11-12-2021 04:31 PM               

The cards are Space Playing Cards.

posted 09-28-2024 08:51 AM               

Cardman drew the art, portraying Hague and Gorbunov on the face cards. She said she did the same for each of the crews she supported, including Crew-5.