The Russians have always been way ahead when it comes to space. The image of the vodka hidden under the (Russian, of course) pilot’s seat results from a long marinated stereotype created by films and TV series in and around space. Very recently, a rather silly and very sanctimonious series, telling a tale of possible Martian conquest, presented us with a cliché the size of a Russian apartment building, the famous “Russian” in space, half-drunkard, half-space-vodka-trafficker… Using the little cosmic knowledge at our disposal, we can state that there will never be anything of the sort (any alcohol in space) for the very technical reasons dealt with in the article below.
If we must then deduce from this that these famous detectors existed to dissuade some people from hiding alcohol under the pilot’s seat, that means concluding that Russian cosmonauts are capable of risking setting a chunk of space alight just to know what it’s like to drink vodka in zero gravity. Therefore, it might be better to close this delicate subject of Russian cosmology once and for all with a Muscovite bottoms up.
