Introducing: The Last Soviet Hosted By Lance Bass

Boyband sensation and little known Russian trained astronaut Lance Bass has a story to tell you. It’s a thriller about the last Soviet cosmonaut stuck in orbit as his country and a way of life disintegrates beneath him. With only one trusted source on earth to explain these unprecedented events, Sergei Krikalev relies on a ham radio operator from Australia, who has managed to tap into the Mir Space Stations frequency. What does it take to defend the final outpost of a falling empire? 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a
little band called in Sync. What you may not know
is that when I was twenty three, I traveled to
Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go
to space. Band member is one step closer to saying
bye bye bye to planet Earth. I spent six months
learning Russian astrophysics, even flying a fighter jet with a drunk.

(00:23):
Commanders have named Lance Bass as a member of the
three person crew. It was the craziest experience of my life.
And when I was there, as you can imagine, I
heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one
that really stuck with me. It's about a man who's

(00:45):
traveling two hundred and fifty miles above the Earth at
five miles a second. His name is Sergei Krikov. He's
a Soviet cosmonaut, and he's manning the world's only space station,
the Pride and Joy of the U. S. S R.

(01:05):
The year is nineteen ninety one. Sarage has been up
there for three months. By now, as the days bleed
into one another, he's starting to feel a bit space sick.
He's been counting down the weeks till he's due to
come home to his wife and family, and that's when
his friend, a Ham radio operator in suburban Australia, tells

(01:29):
him something shocking. She says, Sarage, something bad is happening
in the Soviet Union. After months strikes, protests and deepening
economic chaoss, people are sleeping in train stations. I gave
them my money, old one. We won't give you your bread.
Law and order seem to be breaking down bread Almi

(01:51):
almored personnel carriers on the streets of Moscow this morning
heading to the Kremlin. The republics that make up the
Union were starting to break away. They were wild scenes
Guti and three days his handlers on the ground tell him,

(02:17):
we can't keep this from you anymore. Everything is collapsing
around us, including the Soviet Space Agency. We've run out
of money. We can't send anyone to replace you. So
we're giving you a choice. You can come back down
to Earth's planned and abandon the station to an unknown fate,

(02:39):
or you stay as long as it takes and protect
the station, the final outpost of a falling empire. This
is the story of the three thirteen days Sergei spent
circling the Earth three hundred and thirteen days that change
our world Thanks Christ. Cars like climsy toys. Historians are

(03:05):
likely to be analyzing the events of this day for
generation is to come in Moscow, the Hammer and Sickle
is lord for the last time, and an era comes
to an end. Of pay changed, a rank or status,
everything changed. It was rather like he was a time
traveling I'm Lance bass And from Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts.

(03:26):
This is the Last Soviet. Listen to the Last Soviet
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.