The Soviet Union’s striving for being the first in everything let the country go down in history as the leader in space exploration. It created laboratory complexes which although became outdated are still fit for use. However, many of them will never make it until modernization. This report is about one of such labs, still alive but doomed for “extinction”.

In order not to deliver tons of water to space stations, they equipped it with special filtering devices processing cosmonauts’ urine and water vapor found inside the station to turn them into drinking water. In case one of such devices breaks down, the station features a water reservoir. Let’s see where they make water for it.

They filter water with special silver filters which kill harmful bacteria. Silver-filtered water remains fresh for a long time.

There are a bunch of pipes in the lab.

The system which provides water for cosmonauts is called Rodnik (standing for “spring”).

One of the tanks of the lab.

A vacuum installation.

Another system called U-50 is hidden behind hermetic doors warning about a possibility of an explosion.

This U-50 is out of order.

There are no instructions in the lab on how these devices work.

Behind those hermetic doors.

Mind how thick the door is.

An armored cabin.

An air hole.

The capsule.

Whatever they tested here was heavy.

They would deliver the object under test to the cabin on rails.

In this room there is a tank for nitrogen.

A control panel.

It is manometer.

This panel is half-disassembled.

Let’s see where the lab employees work.

Looking at this place, it is hard to believe that people actually work here in the 21st century. Unfortunately, this is what most of the labs in Russia are like today. Nothing’s changed here after the fall of the USSR.

This lab is going to become abandoned in the nearest future. Let’s hope its employees will find a better place to work.

Location: The Moscow Region

via saoirse-2010