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The public almost always associates Franz Viehböck with the Austromir 91 project. From October 2nd to 10th, 1991 he was the first Austrian to fly into space. Clemens Lothaller, the man in the second team, remained on the ground, which was only clear two months before the start. Details of the “making of” are less known; This is how the countdown began during the times of the “Iron Curtain”.
July 10, 1987: Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Gorbachev government, proposes to the Austrian federal government a joint manned space flight to the Soviet Mir space station.
9 – In October 1987, the framework conditions are discussed at an expert meeting.
8 – On April 5, 1988, the Austrian federal government gives its approval.
7 – On April 9, 1988, the Federal Ministry of Science and Research issued the “call for tenders for Austrian cosmonauts”; Deadline: May 27, 1988. Requirements: completed scientific, technical, medical, university or equivalent training; an ideal age between 30 and 40; Austrian citizenship; Willingness to undertake eighteen months of intensive training. Russian language skills are desired. No fewer than 200 male and 20 male applicants want the job, and a total of 198 meet the conditions of the advertisement.
6 – On October 11, 1988, Ryzhkov (USSR) and Chancellor Franz Vranitzky sign an agreement. Es ging a) um die Mithilfe bei der Auswahl der Kosmonautenkandidaten, b) um die Vorbereitung und Ausbildung der von den Vertragsparteien ausgewählten Kosmonautenkandidaten sowie c) um Start, Flug und Rückkehr des Kosmonauten und allem was dazu gehört (salopp formuliert); weiters unter Punkt d): Die Ermöglichung der Durchführung der wissenschaftlichen Experimente unter Mithilfe der sowjetischen Kosmonauten in der Raumstation und schließlich um die Übermittlung der Resultate der Experimente (Punkt e). The whole thing wasn't cheap. Austria paid the Soviets 850 million schillings, which would be equivalent to 61.77 million euros today.
5 – “On November 17, 1988, at a time when I no longer expected it at all, I received a letter from the ASA (Austrian Society for Space Issues),” said Viehböck, an electrical engineer. First on the agenda was a comprehensive health check, the costs of which everyone had to pay for themselves.
4 - In phase 2 (January 1989 to February 1989) psychological and medical tests are on the program. 70 candidates were selected as suitable. After phase 3 (February 1989), psychological preselection, 30 remained. This was followed from March to April 1989 by survival training including a parachute jump. After that, only 15 remained in the team of potential cosmonauts, whose number was reduced to 13 in the course of further tests. After a total of eight selection steps, there were only seven left, including two women. This was followed by ten weeks of fitness training and a final selection step in Moscow: two men, two women and one reserve candidate remained. In Austria they chose Franz Viehböck (born in 1960) and Clemens Lothaller (born in 1963). Starting in January 1990, the two of them underwent a training program in Russia that not only put them through their paces - in the truest sense of the word - but was also intended to prepare them for all eventualities.
In the Austromir manual, which appeared before the start in August 1991, not only all scientific experiments are listed in detail, but also personal impressions from Viehböck and Lothaller. From January 8, 1990, they completed their education and training program at the Soviet training center for cosmonauts ("Star City"), 40 kilometers northeast of Moscow: "Our training began immediately after our arrival here in the Star City. The daily program includes morning exercise at seven o'clock, which lasts about 45 minutes. The teaching units take place from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a one-hour lunch break. [...] The first four months we learned with one University teacher intensively studied Russian, as understanding the Russian language was a prerequisite for the further lectures, which of course were all held in Russian. During the day we had up to eight hours of Russian lessons and in the evenings we were busy with homework and learning vocabulary."
But it wasn't just the mind, the body was also put through a lot of stress. "For example, we completed parachute jumps or survival training in winter at minus 15 degrees Celsius. The three of us were taken into a forest in the landing capsule. With the help of an emergency ration of food and water that was available on board and the appropriate emergency tools, we had to survive for two days. A helicopter rescue from the water and from land and special survival training at sea were intended to get us used to the conditions of a water landing." The two of them had little free time.
A small digression: The two found time to accept an invitation from the then military attaché Maximilian Trofaier in Moscow. Trofaier explains this in his memoirs (2004): "It began with my office at the embassy in Moscow taking on care tasks for the two Austrian space aspirants Lothaller and Viehböck. This led to several invitations to visit the Soviet cosmonaut training center Svyozdny Gorodok, the Star City near Moscow, once even with my family." His son, Maximilian Trofaier (jr.), now an archivist at the Schottenstift, remembers: "Both of them were with us for dinner. This particularly made a lasting impression on my then six-year-old sister, who wanted to go into space from that moment on. She has also come closer to her childhood dream; she studied astrophysics, and Anna Maria Trofaier has been working at Esa (Climate office) as a cryosphere scientist since 2018.
3 - On August 7, 1991 it was clear: Viehböck would fly with Alexander Volkov and Takhtar Aubakirov to dock with the Mir space station. The second team, Clemens Lothaller, Alexander Wiktorenko as commander and Talgat Musabayev, remained on the ground. But they were always ready to step in if necessary.
2 – Both teams travel to the starting site in separate buses on October 2, 1991. That was an emotional moment, not only for Viehböck, but also for Lothaller: "... and when Franz and his colleagues finally climbed into the spacesuits, while we stood idly by in civilian clothes, I felt something like the pain of separation for the first time. Especially since Franz and I had become real friends in these last two weeks in Leninsk." Franz Viehböck: "Another 10,000 seconds. The actual farewell. The second crew stays behind here. The congratulations are simple, but they come from deep in the heart, you can feel it: 'All the best,' I hear a few times. And: 'Do it well' - that was Clemens -, the last German word for eight days, I think, but then I realize that I will certainly have contact with him or someone else from the space station."
1 - On October 2, 1991 at 6:59 a.m. CET (9:59 a.m. local time), the Soyuz launch vehicle carrying the Soyuz TM-13 space transporter lifts off. Trofaier, the military attaché, looking back: "I accompanied the Austrian government delegation under BK Vranitzky to the rocket launch and thus had the opportunity to visit the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is otherwise strictly forbidden for foreigners. In addition to the farewell ceremony of the cosmonauts, where I was given preferential treatment as a uniformed man (while, somewhat embarrassingly for me, high-ranking civilian members of our delegation such as the mayor of Graz and members of the NR were given access to the sterile space Farewell space was denied, from which the cosmonauts emerged afterwards, shaking hands, to be taken by car to the rocket about a kilometer away), and observing the launch as the sun rose, there was also a tour of the huge hangars for the intercontinental ballistic missiles located there.
0 - On October 4, 1991 at 8:40 a.m. CET, the space transporter Soyuz TM-13 docked with the Mir space station.
Clemens Lothaller in a sentimental review, published in the book "Austromir": "I had successfully completed a two-year training course. But for the first time I realized that I had actually not achieved my goal." Continuing in the original sound: "The very next day I had caught myself again, the next 'moral' only caught me again during the docking maneuver. When Franz climbed into the space station, I had a frog in my throat and had to interrupt my co-commentary for television. […] Franz had recently spoken to the Austrian Federal President and showed his best standard German. Immediately afterwards he greeted me with a heartfelt: 'Servas Oida!'"
In the next few days Viehböck had his hands full; he had to carry out no fewer than 15 experiments that had been meticulously worked out over the years. Almost all projects had one thing in common: the Russian syllable "Mir" (мир), which stands for planet Earth, the world; in the plural also for peace. His to-do list ranged from Audimir, where he had to explore how sound sources could be localized in weightlessness, to Pulstrans. They wanted to know how exertion in weightlessness affects cardiac functions.
Lothaller, who remained on the ground, experienced the landing of the space capsule on October 10, 1991 at 5:12 a.m. near Arkalyk in Kazakhstan as an elementary event. "As the parachute slowly spread over the ground, the capsule sank into a huge cloud of dust. When it became visible again, it was lying on its side. Our helicopter was the first to land. I suddenly found myself standing in front of a black, completely charred, smelly, smoking and hissing object. It didn't look as if it had just fallen from the sky. More like a devilish thing from hell. Together with a technician, I opened the hatch. […] I didn't hear any voices from another world that one would hear could have expected from this sight, but a familiar one: 'Servas Oida'." (Thomas Hofmann, September 15, 2021)