Added Glitz to the 2014 Winter Games: Russia to Take Olympic Torch on Space Walk

With two Russian cosmonauts set to take the Olympic torch this week for a walk on space, the 2014 Winter Games promises to be one of the most spectacular Olympic events ever. To ensure safety however, the torch will stay unlit during the entire travel to space.

Setback

The fact that the Olympic torch will not be lit while on the space station may spare Russia of its apprehension that a setback might mar the games. In the torch relay that began in October the flame went out a lot of times. Followers of the event interpreted the relay hiccups to have indirectly caused the minor glitz in President Vladimir Putin’s endeavor to push forward the image of Russia using the Winter Games as platform.

Torchbearers

Cosmonauts Mikhail Tyurin of Russia, Rick Mastracchio of America and Koichi Wakata of Japan will carry the torch with them when they arrive at the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome which is being rented by Russia from Kazakhstan. Tyruin will endorse the torch to Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryanzansky at the orbiting station. Kotov and Ryanzansky are the Olympic torchbearers during the space walk. In 1996 and 2000, the torch was also brought to space but it stayed inside the spacecraft.

Space walk goal

Kotov said in an interview that the objective of the Olympic torch space walk is to give people a spectacular show. Russia, he said, would like to showcase the torch in space. The two cosmonauts have promised to conduct the show beautifully inasmuch as millions of people worldwide will watch it live on television. The day the Olympic torch is shown in space is expected to bring merriment to spectators, especially that they will also see how Russia’s space station works.

Torch touch down

After the space walk is done on November 11, Russian Fyodor Yurchikhin, American astronaut Karen Nyberg and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano will bring down the torch. As soon as the torch touches the earth, the 65,000-kilometer torch relay will continue up to Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in Europe and down to the depths of Siberia’s Lake Baikal. The torch has been taken to the North Pole via a high-powered atomic ice-breaker.

Lighting power

The Olympic torch maintains its light with a newly replaced gas flame and tether. When on space, this lighting power is expected to hold the flame in place and prevent it from flying away. Sergei Krikaleve, head of the Cosmonauts’ Training Centre located outside Moscow said Russians did some alterations on the red and silver torch to make it suitable to be taken into open space.

Torch remains lit

During the space walk show, the fire will stay aflame at the Olympic cauldron here on earth. The grandiose preparations for the Games as well as the spectacular torch relay and space walk are part of Putin’s objectives to bring Russia to the limelight. Through the Winter Games in February 2014, the Russian government wants the world to see their country’s modern and advanced state and how far it has recovered from the time the Soviet Union underwent a breakdown in 1991.

Photo Credit: Model of Olympic Torch