I send you off into the Thanksgiving break with a special treat: an entire site dedicated to the 1981 spaceflight of Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa, the only Mongolian to have soared into the heavens (albeit with Soviet help). The mission made Gürragchaa a national hero, a status that he later parlayed into a political career.
What is most incredible about the site is its logorrheic attempt to explain the scientific import of the mission. We remain convinced that the mission was primarily intended as a morale booster for Mongolia, which certainly needed good reason to stay in the diminishing Soviet fold. But we must confess that we’re intrigued by the experiment on display here; the photo’s caption on the site reads:
The projects “Chatsrgana/Buckthorn/” and “Borts/Dry meat/” prepared by Mongolian scientists is being introduced (Lkhagva and Urtnasan)
Perhaps that important advances in celestial borts knowledge justifies the triumphalism on display here.
jackal // Nov 23, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Celestial borts eh? There’s a simpsons episode (from, say, 1994) to be made here..