Abstract
Ground control to Comrade Ivan
The previous journey of the Soyuz 1 had already ended in a widely publicized tragedy–cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when the capsule's reentry parachutes failed–and Soviet officials would not tolerate another failure. They wanted nothing more on the record that could tarnish the reputation of their larger-than-life space program, a matter of enormous national pride and international competition.
So Istochnikov, once regarded as a popular hero like all his fellow cosmonauts, was stealthily erased from official Soviet history. “For the official record, Ivan Istochnikov died from an illness a few months earlier,” wrote Michael Arena, historian of the Sputnik Foundation of Moscow, in his text “On the Trail of Ivan Istochnikov.”
“To avoid contradictory voices, his family were confined, his colleagues were blackmailed, the archives were doctored, and photographs retouched,” Arena wrote.
The Soyuz 2 flight went down in history as unmanned–as if Istoch-nikov had never existed. The world never heard Is-tochnikov's strange tale–until now. Thanks to the efforts of the Sputnik Foundation, an organization devoted to unearthing the buried secrets of the Soviet space program, many new facts have come to light, enabling modern historians to piece together Istochnikov's forgotten life. The artifacts uncovered by the foundation include voice transcriptions, videos, original annotations, some of his personal effects, and photographs taken throughout his lifetime.
A portrait of the artist, Joan Fontcuberta, as cosmonaut Istochnikov.
Finally, it seems, some long-deserved recognition has been given to Istoch-nikov's story.
But here's the best part: It's just that–a story. Or, more appropriately, an elaborate, multi-layered work of art by a man who calls himself a “fabricator.”
In 1990, the Berlin Wall had just fallen and the Iron Curtain was beginning to lift. Spanish artist Joan Fontcuberta was convinced that many secret chapters of Soviet history were about to be unveiled. As a visiting professor at Chicago's School of the Art Institute, Fontcuberta had for the first time witnessed the transformative power that computers could wield over photography; this realization, combined with the atmosphere of a changing world, inspired him to “forge a photodoc-umentary of a Soviet cosmonaut” whose demise was elaborately hushed up in political propaganda.
Blurring the line between fiction and reality wasn't new to Fontcuber-ta. During the mid-1980s, he presented, in collaboration with writer Pere Formiguero, the intricate fiction of the archives of the late Dr. Peter Ameisenhaufen, a German-born explorer and zoologist. Photographs of the “specimens” that Ameisenhaufen discovered include the Alopex stultus, a Siberian animal with the curious and ineffective defensive habit of camouflaging itself as a shrub. Viewed in its natural habitat, the animal looked a lot like a fox, except it had the head of a turtle and no hind legs.
The other fantastic specimens from Ameisen-haufen's archives, lie, like Alopex stultus, somewhere at the same intersection of science, humor, and fantasy–and were all created by Fontcuberta, with the help of a taxidermist. The point of all this, says the artist, is to make people question the veracity of photographic documentaries and written histories.
With the arrival of digital photo manipulation, Fontcuberta found a new tool, and in 1995 he began working in earnest on the cosmonaut project. He traveled to Moscow and other Russian cities, where he took photos and researched his topic, hired a translator and historian, interviewed former employees of the Soviet space program, and set about creating the well-documented but completely fake history of Colonel Istochnikov.
The project includes several “texts” like the one quoted above, seemingly serious inquiries into and essays on the nature of Istochnikov's disappearance, which, upon careful examination, are revealed as parodies of journalistic and historical writing. There are other tiny clues: “Ivan Istoch-nikov” is a close translation of the artist's Catalan name into Russian. (Font-cuberta and Istochnikov both mean “hidden fountain.”) The digitally enhanced photos, too, give up the game to anyone who knows the artist–Fontcuberta lent his own face to Istochnikov, whom he calls an “imaginary extension of my identity.”
In Brief
Last fall, after the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, followed by anthrax sent in the U.S. mail, many members of the public worried that another bioweapon or chemical attack could come at any time. Tommy Thompson, the head of Health and Human Services, as well as other government officials, downplayed public safety concerns and specifically discouraged ordinary citizens from taking precautions like purchasing gas masks. The October 10, 2001 Washington Post revealed, however, that the government had issued gas masks to Congress nearly a year before the September attacks. As Victor Ut-goff, a defense analyst, told the Post, “The fact that those things are given out [to Congress] is hardly a source of confidence for the American people that they don't need to do the same thing for themselves.”
By mid-December last year, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency had completed its comprehensive assessment of state governments' preparedness to respond to acts of terrorism. But any citizen who wanted to see how his or her state stacked up was out of luck–the report was classified (Federal Computer Week, December 12, 2001).
After letters containing a powdery, weaponized type of anthrax were sent through the mail, the U.S. Postal Service was left with a very large quantity of “quarantined” mail that, it was feared, might have some small amount of anthrax spores clinging to envelopes and wrappings. The post office decision to irradiate this pile of mail to decontaminate it was seen as a potential windfall for the fledgling food irradiation industry, which had learned during a major, year-long test-marketing effort that the public had scarcely any interest in irradiated food products. According to a December 7 Associated Press report, the irradiated mail was just fine–except for the 90 pounds of larger envelopes and magazines that caught fire during the irradiation process. John Gilbert, a spokesman for Ion Beam Applications, a commercial irradiation firm, called the fires “regrettable but expected.”
The December 24, 2001 issue of Chemical & Engineering News reported that the Gemological Institute of America and SureBeam, a subsidiary of Titan Corporation of San Diego, studied the effects of irradiation on gemstones sent through the mail. They found that the irradiation process could produce “dramatic changes” in some accidentally irradiated gemstones. For instance, if white pearls were irradiated, they turned gray, pale blue sapphires turned orange, and pink kunzites, green. An institute spokesman said these results suggested that the public and the industry should use “packaging that would be less likely to undergo irradiation.” The good news? The study investigators found that “diamonds showed no perceptible color change.”
Even before fears of a bioweapon attack, many cautious Americans were trying to lead a nearly germ-free life. That germ-free goal was aided by–or at least exploited by–rapidly increasing sales of “antibacterial” soaps and sprays. In October, however, Kim Lewis, a professor of biology at Northeastern University, and three associates at MIT announced that they had come up with an even more unusual product aimed at keeping Americans safe: a polymer glass coating that can be painted on items like doorknobs and handrails and toilet seats, kills 94 to 99 percent of bacteria on contact, and remains effective through washing after washing. The goal, according to the inventors, is to make any common surface a killing field for airborne bacteria.
The U.S. fallout-shelter industry–which one may assume has had fairly flat sales for some years–was described in a December 7, 2001 Associated Press report as experiencing something of a renaissance as a result of Americans' newly stoked fears of nuclear terrorism. For instance, a Utah company reported that sales had quadrupled–to four a month. And Kleen Air Technologies, a Colorado company that offers a luxury home shelter for $300,000, reported that inquiries–no word on actual sales–had doubled since September 11.
The Radius Defense shelter.
No one knows if any Al Qaeda members will be rehabilitated, but the BBC reported last November 27 that 21 members of Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult, which among other misdeeds launched a poison gas attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995, say their group is now benign, renamed Aleph, and running a fledgling computer business, the profits of which will be used to compensate their victims.
The final project, “Sputnik: The Odyssey of Soyuz 2,” was first presented in a full installation exhibit in a Madrid museum in 1997, and included, among many other items, a replica of the Soyuz 2 capsule. Since then, the “Sputnik” exhibit has been traveling across the globe. Currently, it is on display in Torino, Italy; its next stop is Latin America.
Many unsuspecting folks have been taken in by the story, perhaps because Fontcuberta weaves his fabricated history seamlessly with real facts–like Komarov's death. Fontcuberta collects press clippings by journalists who don't grasp the parody, as well as e-mail messages from people who believe Istochnikov really existed. But the funniest reaction he ever got to the “Sputnik” installation, Fontcuberta told me, was at the showing in Madrid, where the Russian ambassador (probably from the old regime, Fontcuberta surmised) “got extremely angry because I was insulting the glorious Russian past and threatened to present a diplomatic complaint.”
“Sputnik” is available in a limited edition boxset from eyestorm.com that includes the book of texts and select photos from the installation, as well as “memorabilia”–a medal and a meteorite chunk–from Istochnikov's truly “storied” past.
No one moving on mountain
In the months before the decision, Nevadans continued their struggle against the plan.
The Energy Department has spent about $7 billion tunneling into Yucca Mountain and studying its “suitability” as a waste facility. And after nearly two decades, by last August only a few steps remained before Energy could commit to spending the estimated $50 billion more it will take to complete the project.
The department needed to hold public hearings “in the vicinity” of the site–hearings that were mandated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, and reaffirmed by a 1987 amendment, which ruled that of the possible locations for the dump, only Yucca Mountain would actually be considered. (The act is known locally as the “Screw Nevada bill.”)
January 7, 2002: Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (in black helmet) tours Yucca Mountain.
Of course, public opinion about the prospect of a waste dump at Yucca Mountain is already well known–when polled on the matter, somewhere between 75 to 80 percent of Nevadans usually say they oppose it. For its part, the state government has filed three lawsuits to block the waste dump, and its Nevada Waste Project Office's activities are mainly devoted to defeating it. And Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has said he will personally arrest any truck driver found hauling radioactive waste through his city to the dump site (Yucca Mountain is about 90 miles northwest of the Las Vegas “Strip”).
The public hearings took place amid controversy. One was announced in the wrong section of the Federal Register. Another was listed at a non-existent street address, and a third called for a meeting in a building to which public access was denied. Because of a mix-up, the hearing on September 5 was held on short notice, with citizens complaining that the Labor Day holiday also complicated getting the word out. Two hearings were postponed after the terrorist attacks on September 11.
In a letter to Abraham dated October 22, 2001, Nevada's Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, pointed out that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act required Energy to deliver copies of the final Yucca Mountain Environmental Impact Statement to him and the Nevada state legislature before soliciting comments, but they had yet to receive them. Guinn argued that the department should fulfill its requirements under the act before proceeding.
On November 30, the General Accounting Office (GAO) released its report on Yucca Mountain, concluding that some 300 questions about the site remained unresolved and that the decision on storing waste there should be postponed. GAO also warned that the plans Energy officials had been showing to Nevada residents “may not describe the facilities that [Energy] would actually develop.”
Many Nevadans had expressed their desire for Energy Secretary Abraham to attend the hearings, so that he could gauge the depth of their opposition to the Yucca Mountain plan. Abraham appeared to be taking a pass, but then made a surprise visit to Nevada to attend a public hearing on December 12.
In early January, Abraham (who as a member of Congress introduced legislation to abolish the department he now heads) announced that he would tour the Nevada Test Site–part of assessing it as a possible home for a new counterterrorism training center, something Nevada lawmakers were enthusiastic about.
At first, Nevada politicians rallied around Abraham's second visit to their state, but it soon became clear that the main focus of the trip would actually be a tour of Yucca Mountain. Rather than accompany Abraham and his entourage to the potential waste site, many Nevada officials were suddenly no longer available. In the end, while Abraham visited Yucca Mountain, Nevada Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign joined Governor Guinn and Mayor Goodman on the steps of the federal courthouse in Las Vegas, where they pledged to continue their fight against the dump.
Back in Washington, D.C., Abraham officially recommended that Yucca Mountain be developed as the repository for spent fuel.
The next step in the decision-making process is a ruling by the Nevada governor, who has the option to veto the recommendation. If he does so, the waste plan must be sent to Congress within 90 days. Although a simple majority in favor of dumping at Yucca Mountain would overrule the governor, a majority is not expected to approve the measure as long as the Democrats control the Senate.
At the moment, Guinn seems certain to veto the plan. As he wrote soon after Abraham's decision was announced:
“At 11:05 a.m. this morning, I received a telephone call from Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham informing me of his decision to put the nuke waste dump in Nevada.
“I told him that I am damn disappointed in this decision and to expect my veto….
“At the conclusion of the call I told the secretary that I think this decision stinks, the whole process stinks, and we'll see him in court.”
Tails at ground zero
“These are the animals of ground zero that beat all odds,” the narrator says as the film opens. “These are their stories.”
Julia Corrales cuddles Matty, a puppy given to her by her fallen boyfriend's fellow firefighters.
Although hundreds of pets were orphaned by the attacks, the documentary focuses on the roles animals played during and after. When the first hijacked plane hit World Trade Center Tower One, Mike Hingson and his seeing-eye dog Roselle, a yellow Labrador, were caught on the 78th floor where Hingson worked as a sales manager. Roselle not only helped her owner to safety, but also guided others out of the smoke-filled building. Even in spots where people were blinded by smoke and debris, “the dog seemed to be able to see just fine,” Hingson said.
“Mike Hingson had always known the depth of Roselle's love and devotion,” the narrator noted, “but on September 11 he came to appreciate how good she is at what she does. For Roselle, it was just another day at the office.”
Other pets were lost in the confusion, and many in lower Manhattan were left to fend for themselves when owners weren't allowed back to their apartments. Steve and D. J. Kerr's cat Precious, a Himalayan-Persian mix, was left for 18 days before a building manager found her on their roof. “You heard such unrelenting bad news from ground zero,” said Steve Kerr. “This gave everyone hope that something could survive.”
Some of the most engrossing footage shows the thousands of dogs enlisted to find survivors. Canine units from all over the United States responded, and the documentary followed one such team, Pete Denadio and Appol-lo, while they combed the rubble. “You can't replace their noses, not with all the technology today,” Denadio said. Veterinarians were called in to treat more than 700 dogs wounded–with cuts, lacerations, and irritated eyes–in the line of duty.
Dogs were also enlisted to “rescue people's emotions,” said Frank Shane, a therapy dog handler at the scene. “I can't go to war, so I bring my dogs,” he said. “With a dog, people can allow their emotions to be triggered.” Pets were also given to people who had lost loved ones–not as replacements, but for companionship during their time of grief and recovery.
“The stories in Tales from Ground Zero are a testament that from this tragedy, remarkable stories have emerged,” said Animal Planet executive producer Alexandra Bennett on cameraplanet.com. “September 11 is not only a day of loss, but also a day of miracles.”
While BNN's documentary illustrates how animals helped humans, according to Armand Rabuttinio of Just Dogs Records, more can be done to help animals, especially dogs, cope with emotional stress. Rabut-tinio and his partner Rich Parker have combined special touching techniques–based on Rabut-tinio's work as a massage therapist–with scientifically engineered music. To help dogs tune in, so to speak, Just Dogs Records adds high-frequency sounds that only canines can hear.
Last May, the company developed its first CD, Just Dogs Touching Tunes: 2001, to help adopted pets adjust to new owners. “When the terrorist attacks happened,” Rabuttinio told me, “people all over reacted, but few people realize how their emotions have affected their dogs.”
While the musical touch-therapy routines are designed for dogs, people can benefit, too. “If owners take the time to do these touches with the special music, it also relieves their emotional strain,” Rabuttinio said.
But the benefits to owners are secondary. “People are so concerned about their own feelings,” Rabuttinio added, “that they forget about their dogs' investment. Their dogs have been left out of the healing process.”
Did you pack your own bags?
Neither the privacy controversy nor the less-than-stellar trial results are stopping sales of the equipment. The Dallas-Ft. Worth and Palm Beach international airports began testing the FaceIt ARGUS facial recognition system from Visionics Inc. in January, while St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport installed Viisage Technology Inc.'s FaceFinder system. Both systems scan the faces of ticketed passengers and compare them against federal, state, and local databases of criminals.
“We are adding another level of security to protect the traveling public and help restore confidence in the safety of air travel,” said David Metz, director of the St. Petersburg-Clearwater Airport.
Trouble is, some say that the systems do nothing to make air travel any safer. The faces of the September 11 hijackers, for instance, appeared in no one's database. Then, too, critics of face recognition technology say it can be easily duped by weight gain or loss, facial hair, hats, sunglasses, simple disguises, or even poor lighting, and it delivers false positives and false negatives.
In January, the American Civil Liberties Union reported that it obtained records from the Tampa trial showing only false matches between people photographed by the Ybor City cameras and the police department's database. The system made what were, to human observers, obvious errors, such as matching male and female subjects and people with significant age and weight differences.
A heat-sensing camera detected a blood rush (bottom panel) when a test subject lied.
Don't make this mistake
After Canadian Peter Dant died in June at the age of 90, it was revealed that his will was rife with errors. It seems that Dant, who was “deeply disappointed with the decline in written and spoken English,” had decided to make the correction of his will a contest. An expensive piece of jewelry would be the prize for the lucky winner who could correct 12 errors found in each of 12 excerpts to be published in Canada's National Post over a 12-day period (Chemical & Engineering News, July 16, 2001).
Admiring as we are of Mr. Dant's ingenuity, we'd rather you just remembered the Bulletin in your will.
Now a new thermal-imaging system seeks to bypass the task of identifying and matching travelers to a database of miscreants in favor of simply detecting whether a person is lying. The system functions on the theory that people who lie experience a blood rush to the area around the eyes, un-detectable to the naked eye but readable using high-definition thermal-imaging equipment.
As reported in the January 3 issue of Nature, James Levine, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, tested the system with the Defense Department's Polygraph Institute. Levine recruited 20 volunteers and had eight stab a mannequin and remove $20 from its hand. The eight “guilty” subjects were mixed in with the 12 innocent and told to lie during the thermal-imaging process. Researchers correctly identified six of the eight as guilty, and 11 of the 12 as innocent. Polygraph experts conducting lie detector tests on the same people identified six of the eight as guilty, but only eight of the 12 as innocent. Unlike lie detector tests, results with thermal imaging are instant, require no physical contact, and can be read by ordinary security personnel.
Like face recognition, thermal imaging can be performed without a traveler's knowledge. But critics say it's much too early to trust its accuracy or implement it on a large scale. Levine told MSNBC that future experiments would test the technique with miniature cameras and lighting and temperature levels found in airports. Those tests would be followed by large-scale trials at airports themselves, where the technique will be used to judge the veracity of travelers' answers to questions such as “Did you pack your own bags?” and “Why are you entering this facility?”
If thermal imaging does find its way to airline ticket counters, and you've trusted a spouse to pack your bag for your next business trip, you might be making a trip to airport security.
Caveat emptor
As the Federal Trade Commission succinctly put it in a January press release, “fraudsters often follow the headlines, tailoring their offers to prey on consumers' fears and vulnerabilities.” In a massive group Web surf, the FTC and the offices of 31 state attorneys general turned up more than 200 sites hawking bioterrorism-related products with iffy marketing claims. Warnings were sent to 121 site operators, reminding them that false advertising is a no-no and requesting the revision or removal of any scientifically unsound claims or misleading statements.
The Better Business Bureau's recent survey of dubious offers found, to no one's surprise, a host of questionable products and pitches. Some standouts the organization identified include: a $1,000 service for speedy immigration and employment in Canada; the so-called “anthrax exterminator” device that promises to “sterilize most surfaces within 8 seconds”; an anthrax home-testing kit; information about how to take advantage of government funding to “those in need after the terrorist attacks”–available for just $36; and an update of the “Nigerian scam letter” in which a woman claims her husband, killed on September 11, left money to her that must be deposited in a U.S. bank–all she needs is your bank account number.
But perhaps more prevalent than the out-and-out swindlers (like the folks who went after credit card numbers via donation fraud schemes) were companies with more subtle approaches.
Take, for instance, Total Health Discount Vitamin's online offer of the $46.95 “Anthrax Protection Shield,” a combo-pack of colloidal silver drops, olive leaf capsules, and homeopathic “anthrac-inum” mouth spray, sold under the slogan “Total Health's Answer to Bio-terrorism.” The site asserts that anthracinum is typically used as a homeopathic remedy for carbuncles, acne, and boils, and is considered “the method of choice” in Third World countries–for what it doesn't say. But buyer beware: Anthracinum is described on Total Heath's Web site as being prepared from the ground-up pus of anthrax-infected sheep spleens. Yum.
Also in the eyebrow-raising and head-tilting product category: the “executive parachute” (guaranteed to open when jumping from 10 stories or above), oregano oil as an anthrax remedy, and the peerless Bio-Shelter. Peddled by Homeland Defense Systems (“Feel safe at home again”), the Bio-Shelter is a clear, four-person, air-filtered tent touted as “family germ-warfare protection.”
According to the makers, three sprays a day help keep anthrax away.
