Ideal Astronaut: Bald, With Six Huge Arms and One Leg

The world’s most experienced astronaut has offered a tongue-in-cheek opinion as to how the ideal space traveler should look: It would be useful in space to have six arms, one leg and be bald.

In a conversation with ground control that the newspaper Pravda printed Monday, cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko, who has been orbiting the Earth in the Soviet space station Mir (peace) for 10 months, said a future spaceman should have “huge arms--six would be better--and slim legs, or only one for lack of need.”

Romanenko said he has plenty--perhaps too many--experiments and exercises for his arms but that the muscles in his legs are atrophying because of disuse. In previous conversations with ground control, the cosmonaut has complained of the deterioration in the calf muscles of his legs, which he said have shrunk by 15%. He has been trying to condition his legs on a treadmill and exercise bicycle.

Romanenko also said it would make sense to be bald “to avoid haircuts.”

On a more serious note, he has also reported that his morale sometimes suffers. To keep him chipper, ground control has been increasing the diet of popular music and news broadcasts from Earth.

Romanenko was launched Feb. 6, and his uninterrupted space voyage beat the old record of 237 days in October. He was joined by a fellow crewman, Alexander Alexandrov, in July. The Soviets are readying a new crew to take over from them toward the end of the year.

The main reason for Romanenko’s extended voyage in space, officials say, is to test whether humans could withstand a round-trip flight to the planet Mars.