Oleg Georgievich Gazenko
Authors: Alexandr Grigoriev, Mikhail Ugryumov, Boleslav Lichterman
Journal: BMJ (2008)

Lieutenant General Oleg Georgievich Gazenko was a director of the Institute for Medico-Biological Problems dealing with research in air and space physiology, with special reference to the biological effects of gravitation. His studies justified the feasibility of human flight into space and the security of cosmonauts’ health.

He was born in the village of Nikolaevka in the Stavropol region of southern Russia into a humble family. In 1941 he graduated from the military faculty of the Second Moscow Medical Institute (now the Russian State Medical University) as a military doctor of the third rank (captain of medical service). All graduates were sent to the frontline. During the war with Germany (1941-5) he was the head of the military infirmary of the 197th battalion of aerodrome service of the 15th air army on the western, south western, Bryansk, Baltic, and Byelorussian fronts. He was decorated with military orders and medals.

After the war Gazenko specialised in aviation medicine at the chair of physiology of the Kirov Military Medical Academy in Leningrad. He studied problems of high altitude physiology and the effects of hypoxia on higher nervous activity under the guidance of academician Colonel General L Orbeli and Professor Major General M Brestkin. In 1947 Gazenko was appointed to the Institute for Aviation Medicine of the Ministry of Defence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), where he made a successful career from researcher to deputy head of the institute responsible for research.

He was involved in studies of pilots in unfavourable climates—beyond the Arctic Circle and in deserts. As a flag physician and head of a medical research group, Gazenko participated in air force expeditions to high latitudes (“North Pole—2, 3, 4”) and the Arctic Ocean, as well as in the Kara-Kum desert in Turkmenistan. During 1951-2 he participated in military actions in northern Korea.

From 1956 Gazenko switched to research in space biomedicine linked to sputniki—artificial satellitesput into outer space. The first sputnik was launched into geocentric orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. In took just a month to launch the second sputnik with a dog on board. All experimental animals were stray dogs (mongrels) captured on Moscow streets by special teams. Mongrels were considered to be the most suitable candidates for space experimentation because they had had to fight for survival since birth. Given that dogs’ portraits might appear on the front pages of newspapers, they had to be beautiful, slender, and look intelligent. One of the experimental dogs, Zhul’ka (which was successfully sent into space three times), lived at Gazenko’s home for 12 years. Nowadays her stuffed body is displayed at the Institute for Medico-Biological Problems. Laika—the first dog that was sent into space and died from overheating—is immortalised on the memorial desk at one of the institute buildings. Similar to the famous monument to Pavlov’s dog near St Petersburg, a bronze statue of Laika (whose life was sacrificed for the sake of the human conquest of space) is being erected near the institute. Oddly, Laika also gave her name to a popular brand of Soviet cigarettes with the dog’s profile on the packet. Altogether, 48 dogs were sent to space before Gagarin’s flight. Twenty of them died.

Space research on dogs and surface laboratory experiments which imitated parameters of space flights helped to justify the feasibility of sending manned spacecraft. Gazenko was also directly involved in training the first human cosmonauts, including Yuri Gagarin. They say Gagarin remarked at one of the banquets after his return from space: “I am still unaware who I am—the first man or the last dog.”

In 1969 Gazenko was appointed a director of the Institute for Medico-Biological Problems by a special decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR and Council of Ministers of the USSR. He occupied this position for nearly two decades (till 1988). His research of that period was focused on basic problems of space biomedicine. The study of the impact of zero gravity on living organisms allowed justification of the principles and methods of protecting humans from the unfavourable effects of space flight and creation of a system of supporting the health and productivity of space crews before, during, and after the flight.

From 1978 Gazenko was involved in developing the system of physiological, health, and psychological measures for crews in prolonged space flights and after return to earth. This system was not superseded until recently.

A full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences from 1976, he retired in 1988 with the rank of lieutenant general of the medical service. He was a laureate of the state prize of the USSR and a government prize of the Russian Federation, an honorary member of the Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy for Cosmonautics, and doctor honoris causa of the Russian Military Medical Academy. Gazenko was also recognised internationally. He was a member of the International Academy for Astronautics, the American Association for Air and Space Medicine, and the American and Polish Physiological Societies, and doctor honoris causa of Wrights University (USA) and the Polish Military Medical Academy. He was awarded the highest Soviet orders, including the Order of Lenin, Order of the October Revolution, and the Order of the Red Star, as well as numerous international orders and prizes.

His major publications include Animals in Space (1960), Life and Space (1961), Space Cardiology (1967), and Humanity and Space (1987). He initiated a multivolume series Problems of Space Biology (more than 80 volumes have been published in this series since 1963) and a scientific journal Space Biology and Medicine, launched in 1969 and of which Gazenko was an editor in chief. He also initiated and coedited three volumes of a joint Russian-American publication Fundamentals of Space Biology and Medicine (1975); edited a journal Uspekhi Fiziologicheskikh Nauk (“Progress in Physiological Sciences”) and a series Nauchnye Rezultaty Issledovany v Kosmicheskikh Polyotakh (“Scientific Results of Research in Space Flights”); and was on the editorial boards of several scientific and popular periodicals.

Gazenko was an outstanding organiser. He initiated a series of investigations at biosputniks “Kosmos,” which involved scientists from many countries, and organised international symposiums “Man in Space.” He was a president of the Pavlov All-Union (now Russian) Physiological Society from 1987 until his death, and a chairman of scientific councils of Russian Academy of Sciences on space biology and medicine and of the basic science to clinical medicine programme. During the last years of his life he became fascinated with a project involving surface modelling of a manned spaceflight to Mars. Six people will live 520 days in four hermetic modules nicknamed barrels. There was a call for volunteers aged 25 to 50 of either sex and any race or citizenship. The institute got 150 applications but only five from women. When Gazenko was asked about the optimal age of volunteers he answered: “Gaius Julius Caesar selected 40 year old warriors for his march to Gallia. These are mature people with life experience and devoid of youthful adventurousness.”

His personality was characterised by refinement, wisdom, tact, and tolerance of other people’s views. “There are few positive emotions in space,” Gazenko said. “Not physical but psychological stress is the most difficult thing to cope with for cosmonauts. We should help the crew to overcome this problem.” He supplied spacecrafts with a small amount of cognac (7.5 g a day for each person).

During 1989-91 Gazenko was a deputy of Verkhovny Sovet (Soviet parliament), where he joined the committee on science and education. He was a member of the parliamentary commission on investigation of events in Tbilisi on 9 April 1989, when tanks were used for dispersal of a demonstration of Georgian nationalists.

In his younger years Gazenko was fond of tourism, rowing, and mountaineering, and he was a certified mountain instructor. His later pastimes were gardening and growing flowers at his dacha near Moscow. His favorite writers were Chekhov, Henry, Verne, and Clark. He liked jazz and classical music. He also became interested in history, particularly in the history of science and space travel.

Gazenko is survived by his wife, Olga Alexeevna Tolmachevskaya, and two children—his son, Alexei, and daughter, Larissa.