RUSSIA: COSMONAUT'S TRAINING CENTRE AT STAR CITY

(5 Oct 2000) Russian/Eng/Nat In Russia three astronauts are taking final tests before their flight to the international space station, set for October 30th. The crew of one American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts have completed training at the cosmonauts' base in Star City near Moscow. The main crew is headed by Bill Shepherd, a veteran American astronaut. The two Russian cosmonauts, Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko, are equally experienced. Pyotr Klimuk, head of the cosmonauts' training centre, said he had big hopes for the international space station. Despite the financial problems facing the Russian government, Chris Nieman of NASA praised the training level at Star City and said the future belongs to international space cooperation. The standby crew, also made up of one American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts, on Thursday also put on spacesuits and took final training in the Soyuz launch module. SOUNDBITE: (Russian) "It (the space station) is, in fact, a miniature earth, on which people should live and work for the sake of the Earth where they were born. Issues that concern people on Earth should be resolved with the help of the station." SUPER CAPTION: Pyotr Klimuk, Head of cosmonauts' training centre SOUNDBITE: (English) "The vision is a big international community doing science up in space for the next ten or 15 years." SUPER CAPTION: Chris Nieman, NASA representative Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives ​​ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/2866db8aa9a18ab6ad236d177ba571f7