Russian cosmonauts to participate in national census staying in orbit - 25 September, 2002

The 25th of September will see the start of a service spaceship "Progress M1-9" to deliver census papers for Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station /ISS/, said the Federal press center "Census-2002" to RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

The docking of the spaceship and the ISS is scheduled for September 29. Therefore, Russian cosmonauts Valery Korzun and Sergei Treshchyov, who are currently staying at the station, will have an opportunity to take part in the all-Russian national census, which will be held in October 9-16.

This is the first time in the world's history of census-taking when people in the space orbit will be questioned, the press center stressed.

Cosmonauts' questioning will be held with the help of the means of cosmic connection. A census-taker will sit in the tracking headquarters asking Valery Korzun and Sergei Treshchyov questions from the census schedule.

The census sheets, which will help the cosmonauts better understand the census questions, will be returned to the Earth with a one-week ISS expedition crew, arriving at the orbiting station in a new piloted Russian spaceship "Soyuz TMA-1" in late October.

When the all-Russian national census 2002 is over, the "space" census sheets will be exhibited in the Museum of the Russian State Statistics Committee, the press service reported.