MOSCOW, April 12. /TASS/. The Russian team of cosmonauts experiences a shortage of personnel and plans to hold an extra procedure of admitting new members, Roscosmos cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov told TASS on Wednesday on Russia’s Cosmonautics Day celebrated on April 12.
"On the contrary, we have a shortage of personnel and plan to additionally select people for the team of cosmonauts," he said, replying to a question about competition upon the selection of new candidates.
Assessing the prestige of the profession, Shkaplerov said that a change of generations was currently underway in the Russian cosmonauts’ team.
"It is time for experienced veterans to hand over their posts to younger members and there are few of them. That is why, we are now holding an open selection procedure. Previously, we preferred to hire military pilots for the post of crew commanders, whereas now any wishing person can file documents to the team and check himself," he explained, citing the example of female cosmonaut Anna Kikina who had earlier worked as a radio host in Altai. On March 12, Kikina returned to Earth aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Russian cosmonauts hold the first 20 places in terms of the continuity of space flights, he said. In particular, Sergey Krikalyov flew to space most frequently, making six space flights. Gennady Padalka is in top spot in the world in terms of the duration of his stay in outer space, having spent 878 days in orbit, Shkaplerov said.
"There are those among the Americans who travelled five times aboard Space Shuttle spacecraft but these were short trips lasting a couple of weeks. Then they did not fly aboard their rockets for eight years at all, when Shuttle spaceships were retired from service all at once. They understood that this would happen but had not time to prepare a replacement: none of the three companies coped with the task. But now they have three types of spacecraft at once," he said.