The first in space. Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov
“When flying in space, one cannot but go out into space ... The cosmonaut must be able to perform the necessary repair and production work in interstellar space ... This is not fantasy - this is a necessity. The more humanity will fly into space, the more this need will be felt. ”
These words, spoken at the very beginning of the space era by Korolev, became truly prophetic. In less than fifty years stories "Extravehicular activity" dozens of people visited the open space, and the duration of a person’s stay in one way out increased from several minutes to several hours. Creating and maintaining the ISS in general would be impossible without long-term space missions and a huge amount of repair and installation operations. However, the first step on this journey was 18 March 1965. It was on this day that the Soviet pilot-cosmonaut Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov was the first earthman to leave the spacecraft. He stayed in space for just 12 minutes, 9 seconds, but in the exploration of the universe this event rightfully took second place after the legendary flight of Gagarin.
Aleksey Arkhipovich 30 was born on May 1934 of the year in a small village called Listvyanka located six hundred kilometers north of the city of Kemerovo. His grandfather, who was exiled by the tsarist government after the 1905 revolution of the year, lived here for a long time. Alexey's parents came to the Donbas - first, mother, and after the Civil War ended, father - Leonov Arkhip Alekseevich. Mother, Evdokia Minaevna, worked as a village teacher, her father, formerly a miner from Donetsk, settled down as chairman of the village council. Alexey was the ninth child.
In 1936, a denunciation was written on Arkhip Alekseevich. According to the article “Enemy of the People” without trial, he was sent to a Siberian camp, and a mother with eight children (one of the Leonov sisters, Vera, died in infancy) and the ninth in a position were driven out of the house with confiscation of all property. The children were also expelled from school. The future cosmonaut said: “At that time, my elder sister lived in Kemerovo and worked on the construction of a CHP plant. There she married a boy from Mogilev - he also worked at a construction site and studied at a technical school. They had a room in the hut. In the thirty-degree frost, my sister's husband came to take us on the sledge, spread out a sheepskin coat, put us eight and covered us with a sheepskin coat on top ... So we found ourselves in the Kemerovo barrack - eleven people in a sixteen-meter room. The guy was 22 of the year - a simple worker, a student, he sheltered the family of the enemy of the people. Well, what courage it was necessary to have ... ". In 1939, Arkhip Alekseevich was rehabilitated and returned home. The Leonov family slowly began to stand up. And soon a decree was issued on supporting mothers of many children. All in the same hut they were given two rooms - sixteen and eighteen square meters.
In 1943, Alexey Arkhipovich went to elementary school No. 35. Among the main hobbies of the young Alexei at that time was the painting of old Russian stoves, which he learned from migrants from Ukraine who lived in the neighborhood. Once, when he was already at school, Leonov saw a book from his classmate with black-and-white illustrations of Aivazovsky’s paintings and had a burning desire to purchase it. It cost him a lot - Alexei had to pay a gram of bread and a sugar cube every day at 50 school to him for a month. Since then, Aivazovsky became his favorite artist.
In 1947, the Leonov family moved to a new place - in the city of Kaliningrad. Here, in 1953, Alexei graduated from high school number 21, having received his matriculation certificate. By that time, he was already very keen on flying, knew the ins and outs of famous aviators, reviewed all the films about pilots, and independently made aircraft models. According to the notes of the elder brother of Peter, the former aviation technician, Alexey Arkhipovich with enviable persistence studied the basics of flight theory, aircraft engines and aircraft designs. In combination with outstanding sporting achievements, this was the key that opened the doors of the flight school to the guy. In August 1953, Leonov was enrolled in the tenth Military Aviation School for initial pilot training, located in the city of Kremenchug (Poltava region), which he successfully graduated in 1955. In connection with the extraordinary abilities shown, he was sent to Ukraine in the city of Chuguev at the higher military school of fighter pilots. And from 1957 to 1959, Alexey served in the 69th Air Army of the Tenth Guards Division, located on the territory of Ukraine.
At the end of the summer of 1959, Colonel Karpov, the future head of the Cosmonaut Training Center, arrived in the division of Leonov. He invited several pilots, including Alexei Arkhipovich, to his conversation. By the way, the day before the aviator got into a serious accident, which happened due to the failure of the hydraulic system of the MiG-15bis fighter. Oil alternator flooded, and disconnected the entire group of navigation devices. With difficulty orienting, Leonov immediately sent the plane to the airfield. When he had already flown the distant drive, the Fire indicator was lit and the siren started to work. Leonov knew that in such a situation it was necessary to eject, but at a height of two hundred meters it was pure suicide. The pilot was landing, knowing full well that an explosion could happen at any moment. On the near drive, he cut off the fuel supply and sat down with the engine off. Alexey Arkhipovich did not reach the strip about three hundred meters, but he taxied on it and stopped. As a result, the aircraft did not receive any damage, and the fire, as it turned out, was not at all - the indication worked, because the oil sucked into the compressor.
At the meeting, Colonel Karpov, without explaining his intentions, asked about the health of Leonov and his plans for the future. Alexey Arkhipovich noted that he is completely healthy and thinks to keep flying. Then the colonel invited him to enter the test pilot school. The call came on 2 in October 1959, and two days later, Leonov arrived in Sokolniki at the Aviation Hospital (CVNIAG) for a medical examination. There he saw Yuri Gagarin for the first time: “I went into the ward and found that not one - a man of my age was sitting on a stool, naked to the waist, and reading. What struck me most was that he read ... Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." In 1959, even from the reading elite, very few people knew about this writer, and here the pilot ... He looked at me with big smiling blue eyes and introduced himself: "Senior Lieutenant Yuri Gagarin." After a short time, the pilots became close friends. Already after the death of the first cosmonaut, Leonov said: “He didn’t stand out in any way, but it was impossible to pass him by anyway — get up and look. Simple speech, classic Russian language, understandable and memorable. Only later I understood what an extraordinary person it was - he grasped everything on the fly, had an amazing system analysis, was obligatory, hardworking, devoted to friendship ... ”.
Numerous, often grueling examinations were conducted at the hospital over Leonov. Alexey Arkhipovich said: “From my point of view, a lot of nonsense was allowed during the survey. Among the doctors there were people engaged in scientific work and taking astronauts as material for their dissertations. Because of any nonsense, which was later canceled, we lost a lot of talented guys .... If we apply the old medical requirements for the latest sets of cosmonauts, then probably no one would have passed ... After I became a manager, I revised a lot with the same doctors, weakened the requirements. ”
In spite of everything, in 1960, Leonov was accepted into the first cosmonaut detachment. Months of strenuous training were drawn up in order to prepare for the upcoming flights, during which participants continued to undergo various medical experiments, often unreasonably cruel: “The centrifuge maneuvers were accompanied by very large overloads reaching 14g. This is a crazy load. On the back after such workouts there were hemorrhages, hemorrhages were present both inside and on soft tissues. In general, all this did not add to health. ” During one of these tests, Alexei Arkhipovich was placed in a deafbarokamera for fifteen days. He was glued to the body with an unknown paste for electrical conductivity. Further, from the words of an astronaut: “I wake up on the tenth day and see that the whole sheet is in blood. I look, and a couple of sensors fell off and with them the tatters of my skin. At the places where they were glued, there is no epidermis left - only muscles twitching in the rhythm of the heartbeat. Two months healed these places. I cut off the rest of the zinc sensors and put them on the shelf in order to show after experience who needs .... But on the thirteenth day, oxygen began to run out, the experiment was stopped, and I was removed from there. When I returned to the camera for the sensors, they were no longer there .... There was no physical evidence. The same audience later burned Bondarenko ... ”.
Another incident occurred during the casting of the astronaut's lodgement. During this operation, Leonov had to lie down naked in a trough, which was then filled with liquid gypsum with a temperature of about 10 degrees. He lay in this icy sour cream, which gradually hardened and heated. The most important thing was not to miss the moment when the plaster began to harden. And it was with him that moment they missed: “And they began to pick me out. And then every hair is an anchor. It doesn’t come out, then it was jerked off - and in the pieces of plaster, along with the hair, skin remains. ”
In the 1963 year, after six single-seat ships of the Vostok type (including the Vostok 6 with Valentina Tereshkova) visited the planet's orbit, the design bureau, headed by Korolev, began designing the new spacecraft of the same series, but designed for three places. Simultaneously with the preparation of the flight (which was successfully completed in October 1964, Komarov, Feoktistov and Egorov), on the basis of the Voskhod design, it was decided to create a two-seater ship that would allow a person to go into the airless space. The place vacated after the dismantling of the third chair was used as a platform for putting on the spacesuit, as well as the entrance to the airlock.
By the way, it was originally supposed to conduct experiments with animals. After depressurization of the box, the beast in it and dressed in a spacesuit had to make an independent exit (or intended to push it) out of the spacecraft with the obligatory subsequent return for research. However, such a step was refused. First, there were questions of developing a special spacesuit for the animal. Secondly, such an experiment did not give an answer to the main question: whether a person is able to move and orient himself in such an unusual situation.
As a result of consideration of various technical solutions, the choice was given to the use of a lock chamber, which is a small space, isolated from all sides. The astronaut, dressed in a spacesuit, was supposed to be in it until all the air surrounding him was released. After that, he will be able to open the hatch leading out. The return to the ship proceeded in the reverse order - the airlock closed outside and inside was gradually filled with air, after which the inner hatch opened and the astronaut got into the ship’s cabin. The airlock itself was inflatable, located outside the body of the aircraft. During its entry into orbit, it was placed under the fairing in a collapsed form, and before descending to Earth its main part was shot, and the spacecraft reached the dense layers of the atmosphere in its usual form, except for a small growth in the area of the access hatch. The tests showed that the compartment ballistics was not affected.
In parallel with the changes of the Voskhod spacecraft, two crews of cosmonauts were trained for the flight: Pavel Belyaev with Aleksey Leonov and their backups, Viktor Gorbatko and Yevgeny Khrunov. It is curious that the selection of the crew took into account not only the tasks and objectives of the flight, its complexity and duration, but also the psychological, individual characteristics of the astronauts presented by psychologists. The crew of the Voskhod 2 spacecraft presented special requirements for the criteria of coherence and harmony. It was assumed that such a difficult task as going out of a ship’s cabin into open space through a lock chamber could be solved only with full trust, mutual understanding and faith in each other. In accordance with the research of psychologists, Belyaev was characterized as a strong-willed and seasoned person who does not panic even in the most difficult situations, showing tremendous perseverance and logical thinking in achieving his goals. Leonov, in turn, belonged to the choleric type, was impetuous, bold, resolute, and easily developed vigorous activity. In addition, his artistic gift, the ability to quickly memorize the paintings presented to his gaze, and then to reproduce them very accurately, was noted. These two people, having different characters, perfectly complemented each other, creating, according to psychologists, a “highly compatible group” capable of successfully accomplishing their task and compiling a detailed account of all the problems and surprises associated with being in space.
To go into space, a special spacesuit was also created, called the “Golden Eagle”. Unlike the spacesuits, which flew on the "Vostok", he had an additional hermetic shell, which increases overall reliability. Being, in fact, a thermos, it consisted of layers of aluminum-coated plastic film. The top jumpsuit was sewn from multi-layer metallized fabric. The suit was heavily weighted - the weight system was added by the life support system, which was placed in the dorsal knapsack and included a ventilation system and two two-liter oxygen tanks. In addition, a backup oxygen system was installed in the airlock just in case, which is connected with a hose to a spacesuit. The suit's color has also changed - to better reflect the sun's rays, the orange color was changed to white, and a light filter was installed on the helmet. Alexey Arkhipovich recalled: “In December of 1963, we visited the Korolev experimental design bureau. Sergei Pavlovich met us, led us to the workshop, and showed us a mock-up of the Voskhod, equipped with some kind of unusual camera. Seeing our surprise, he explained that this is the gateway to exit into outer space. Then Sergey Pavlovich asked me to put on a new spacesuit and try to perform a series of experiments. After two hours of work, during which I had to work in order, I met Korolev again. I remember, I told him that the task can be fulfilled, you just need to think things through well. ”
The total weight of the “suit for going out” was about a kilogram of 100, however, under weightless conditions, this did not play a significant role. Problems were created by the pressure of the air that filled the hermetic enclosure and made the spacesuit unyielding and rigid. The astronauts had to overcome the resistance of their vestments with great effort. Alexey Arkhipovich recalled: “Only in order to squeeze a hand in a glove, it was necessary to apply an effort in 25 kilogram”. In this regard, all the time of preparation for the flight, special importance was attached to physical fitness - the astronauts performed daily runs, intensively engaged in weightlifting and gymnastics. In addition, the complex of training for more perfect control of your body included jumping into the water, exercising on a trampoline, parachuting, exercises on a rotating "Zhukovsky bench." The conditions for short-term real weightlessness were created for astronauts - in an airplane flying along a special trajectory. Leonov said: “In the huge cabin of the TU-104 a mockup of the 2 Rising cabin was installed, having a full-size airlock. The plane swooped down, accelerated and left steeply upward, performing a “hill” during which weightlessness set in. Its “quality” depended entirely on the skill of the pilots, who, relying only on the data of their vestibular apparatus, forced the plane to fly exactly on a parabola. With each such maneuver, weightlessness lasted just over twenty seconds. During the hour and a half of the flight, five such slides were made, gaining a total of two minutes of weightlessness .... Many times we took off into the air, step by step over these short periods of time honing all the details of entering the ship’s cabin and leaving the airlock. ”
Interestingly, in those years there were many scientific theories about human behavior in outer space. Some experts quite seriously argued that the astronaut would inevitably "weld" to the spacecraft. Similar concerns were based on experiments on cold welding conducted in vacuum. Other scientific luminaries believed that a person, having lost his usual support, could not make a single movement behind the ship. Still others believed that the endless space would have an extremely negative impact on the astronaut's psyche ... In reality, no one knew exactly how space would meet man, including the Chief Designer. Daredevils who dared to leave the cozy surface of the earth could only rely on themselves and the equipment that had flown away with them. No rescue systems yet existed - it was impossible to either dock, or get out of one ship, and go through the airless space to another. Korolev told astronauts: "It will be difficult - make your own decisions, depending on the situation." The crew, as a last resort, was allowed to confine themselves to opening the hatch and placing a hand overboard.
18 March 1965, after three years of preparation, the ship "Voskhod 2" with Alexey Leonov and Pavel Belyaev successfully launched from Baikonur. After entering orbit, at the end of the first orbit, Alexey Arkhipovich began to prepare for going into outer space. Belyaev helped him with a life-support knapsack, and then filled the airlock. When Leonov went into the airlock, Pavel Ivanovich closed the hatch behind him and conducted a depressurization of the chamber. Only the last step remained ... Having gently pushed off, Alexey Leonov "swam" out of the airlock. Finding himself in space, he gently moved his legs and arms - the movements were carried out easily, and then he stretched his arms to the sides, began to soar in a vacuum of space, connected with the ship with a five-meter halyard. During the flight over the Volga, Pavel Ivanovich connected the telephone in the cosmonaut's spacesuit to the broadcast of Moscow Radio - at that time Levitan read out the TASS message about the first man’s exit into space. A couple of television cameras watched Leonov from the ship, and he also filmed using a portable camera. For these materials, the film was already mounted on Earth. Also at the disposal of the astronaut was a miniature camera series Ajax, capable of taking pictures through a button. She was given to the crew of the ship "Sunrise 2" with the permission of the KGB chairman. This camera was controlled remotely with a cable, but due to the deformations that occurred in the spacesuit, Leonov could not reach it.
Five times Alexey Arkhipovich flew off and returned to the ship. In the spacesuit all this time the “room” temperature was maintained, and this despite the fact that its outer surface was cooled to –100 ° in the shade, and warmed up to + 60 ° С in the sun. When Alexey Arkhipovich saw the Yenisei and Irtysh, Belyaev gave the order to return. However, it was not so easy to do this - the astronaut's spacesuit was inflated in a vacuum. He himself described what happened: “The pressure in the spacesuit reached 600 mm, outside 10. It was impossible to model such conditions on Earth. Neither the thick fabric nor the stiffeners could stand it - the spacesuit was so swollen that the legs came out of the boots, and the hands - from the gloves. We, of course, assumed that this would happen, but did not think so strongly. ” A critical situation arose: Leonov could not get into the airlock hatch, and there was no time left to talk with the Earth - the oxygen supply was calculated for 20 minutes. Belyaev was aware of everything, but could not help. And then Alexey Arkhipovich, violating all instructions, independently relieved the pressure in the spacesuit and “swam” into the gateway with his face (and not his legs, as it should be) ahead.
Unfortunately, abnormal situations did not end there. After the astronaut returned to the ship, despite the fact that the closure sensors worked, the hatch cover was not covered tightly enough. Due to the constant undercuts of air from the ship, the regeneration system, while working on its program, began to build up pressure. Soon the level of oxygen in the cabin rose above the critical level. The astronauts did everything that depended on them - they removed the humidity, lowered the temperature to 10 ° C, however, they could not determine the cause of the malfunction and earned oxygen poisoning. When the total pressure reached the 920 mm mark, the hatch was in place. Shortly thereafter, the oxygen pressure in the cabin of the ship returned to normal.
According to the plan, the descent of the 2 Rising was to be carried out automatically, but before that it was necessary to disconnect the gateway camera. Having fastened, Leonov and Belyaev made the necessary actions, but a strong blow at the time of the shooting spun the spacecraft in two planes. This, in turn, led to off-design angular accelerations and failure of the orientation and auto-stabilization systems. At that moment, “Sunrise 2” was over Australia, and the astronauts had no connection with the Center. After consulting, they decided to turn off the self-timer system and land the ship in manual mode. Up to this point no one has landed in manual mode yet. Already after the astronauts began to perform orientation, communication was restored, and the crew requested permission to land in manual mode. After some time Gagarin himself answered them, saying that permission had been given. It is curious that the viewer, through which it was possible to carry out orientation, was in relation to the seated cosmonauts at an angle of 90 degrees, forcing them to control the spacecraft, turning sideways. In violation of all the instructions, one of the astronauts had to unleash, get out of the chair, lie across the cabin and, looking out the window, explain to another the position of the Earth.
In the end, the ship "Sunrise 2" successfully landed two hundred kilometers north of Perm. The TASS report called it a landing in a “spare area”, which was actually a deaf taiga. Leonov said: “Why did we end up not at a calculated point? We ourselves determined the landing site for security reasons, all possible deviations displaced the point to safe areas. As a result, at a speed of 28 thousands of kilometers per hour, we landed only 80 kilometers from our own designated place. In my opinion, this is a good result. ” The astronauts were not immediately found, because as such, the search service in those years was not yet. The helicopters could not sit down because of the tall trees, they also could not lose warm clothing. The astronauts spent the night alone in a wild snow-covered forest: “We took out the spacesuits and argued for screen-vacuum thermal insulation. They threw out the hard part, and put the remaining nine layers of deuteron-coated aluminized foil on themselves. From above, like two sausages, they were wrapped in parachute lines. So they sat all the first night. ” The next day, not far from the landing site, the landing of rescuers on skis descended into undergrowth. They made their way to the astronauts in deep snow and cut down the forest under the landing area for the helicopter. Only on the third day, Leonov and Belyaev were taken to Baikonur.
The Chief Designer gave an assessment of the feat accomplished by the astronauts: “Before the crew of the 2 Voskhod, the most difficult task was set, completely different than in previous flights. The future of cosmonautics depended on its successful implementation ... The flight showed that people can get out of the ship and live in free space, work as it should be necessary ... ". At the state commission, Alexey Arkhipovich delivered a report, which became the shortest in the history of cosmonautics: “You can live and work in the open space”.
In domestic practice, the flight of the 2 Rise is considered to be one of the most intense. At the celebration of the 35 anniversary of going into space, the outstanding designer and associate of the Queen, Boris Chertok, told Leonov: “You survived by a miracle! It was all so "raw", so incomprehensible .... After the start, Korolev went and repeated: “Where have I sent them!”. So - congratulations! ” By the way, the Americans also planned a man’s entry into outer space and intended to be the first to implement it. The exit of the Soviet cosmonaut into space by the US government regarded it as another challenge and intensified all its efforts. Information about the upcoming NASA flight was announced by 25 on May 1965 of the year, and Gemini 3 was launched on June 4 with astronauts White and McDivitt on board. On the American device there was no airlock, before opening the entrance hatch, the astronauts had to pump out all the air from the cabin. White swam out into open space, while McDivitt filmed it with a movie camera. With the ship of the American tied the fal for a length of seven and a half meters, through it also received oxygen for breathing.
From 1965 to 1967, Alexey Arkhipovich was the deputy commander of the cosmonaut corps, and from 1967 to 1970 he was part of the group that was trained under the flyby program (Proton-Probe) and landed on the Earth satellite (Х1-Л3). The flight date of the 7 probe has already been set to 8 on December 1968, but in the end it was canceled because the carrier and the ship were not working. As a result, the priority remained for the Americans who made the same 21-27 flight in December 1968. In the future, Alexey Arkhipovich was one of two candidates for participation in the program for the landing of a Soviet cosmonaut on the surface of the moon, which was also canceled. During the period from 1971 to 1973, Leonov was trained five times as commander of space flight crews for various programs, but for reasons beyond his control, all of them were canceled.
In 1969, Alexey Arkhipovich unexpectedly became an unwitting witness to the attempt on Leonid Brezhnev. 22 On January, Moscow met the crews of the Soyuz 4 and 5 Soyuz, who had returned from orbit just a few days before. The car, in which astronauts Leonov, Nikolaev, Beregovoy and Tereshkova were sitting, was fired upon by a junior lieutenant Viktor Ilyin on the road from the airport to the Kremlin, who decided that the General Secretary was in their car. Fortunately, Alexei Arkhipovich was not injured, although Georgi Beregovoy’s face was cut up with glass fragments, and Andrian Nikolayev was wounded in the back.
At the end of 1972, the superpowers of the USSR and the USA decided to carry out a joint space flight and during the course of it dock the ships of two different countries. Each side determined the astronaut selection criteria independently, but the necessary conditions were: the highest professional qualifications, deep knowledge in the field of technology, ability to work with the equipment and systems of both ships, excellent knowledge of the language of the partner country and readiness to conduct an extensive program of scientific observations and experiments. The Soviet Union was represented by Leonov (commander of the crew) and Kubasov, the USA - Stafford, Brand and Slayton. Alexey Arkhipovich recalled: “The flight under the ASTP program was extremely politicized. It all started with a terrible mistrust. The program was led by the United States by David Scott. He just told everyone how bad everything is with us. Once I took him to "talk": "Dear David, you know that we are fulfilling the will of our peoples. We have been entrusted with such a difficult task, and we must do everything we can. No need to look for that and who is bad. I can also tell you what's bad with you. ” The next time we got together, Scott was gone, and Cernan became the program manager. ” In July, 1975 joint EPAS program flight was successfully implemented, opening a new era in space exploration. For the first time in history, the docking of the Soviet "Union 19" and the American "Apollo" was held, many medical and biological, astrophysical, geophysical and technological experiments were conducted.
Major General Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov resigned in March 1992 of the year. Until 2000, he worked as president of the Alfa Capital investment fund, and then moved to the position of vice president of Alfa Bank. Now the legendary cosmonaut lives in a country house near Moscow, which he designed and built himself.
During his long and intensive career, Alexey Arkhipovich participated in many international congresses and scientific conferences, made about thirty reports, wrote several books. He owns four inventions and over a dozen scientific papers in the field of astronautics. Leonov is twice the Hero of the Soviet Union and the holder of many orders and medals, an honorary citizen of more than thirty cities in the world. For more than two decades, Alexey Arkhipovich has been collaborating with the Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation, transferring from his personal collection unique documents about joint training of Soviet cosmonauts and American astronauts, as well as many amateur films about domestic space explorers.
With his future wife, Svetlana Pavlovna Dotsenko, Alexey Arkhipovich met while studying at an aviation school. Subsequently, they had two girls, Oksana and Victoria. The most favorite hobby of Leonov all his life was and still is painting, which the astronaut got carried away in his early years. Leonov is the author of over two hundred paintings and five art albums, among which are dominated by cosmic landscapes, but there are also earthly landscapes, as well as portraits of friends. The cosmonaut prefers to work with watercolor, Dutch gouache and oil. Leonov also collected a large library of art, including many rare books, he visited all the largest foreign art galleries and museums, he was personally acquainted with Picasso. In 1965, Alexey Arkhipovich was elected a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR. His other hobbies include reading books, hunting, photography and filming. Leonov - the owner of the second category in cycling and the third category in fencing, professionally engaged in javelin throwing and athletics.
Alexey Arkhipovich ends his book “Going into Space” with these words: “Going into space is one of the most complex operations in orbit, requiring great skill, thorough preparation and great courage. I watch on TV the current astronauts, listen to their reports to Earth, and each time I relive my flight. I envy them and with all my heart I wish you success. "
Based on materials from the site http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/ and from an interview with an astronaut on http://www.pravoslavie.ru/ and http: //88.210.62.157/content/numbers/237/40.shtml
These words, spoken at the very beginning of the space era by Korolev, became truly prophetic. In less than fifty years stories "Extravehicular activity" dozens of people visited the open space, and the duration of a person’s stay in one way out increased from several minutes to several hours. Creating and maintaining the ISS in general would be impossible without long-term space missions and a huge amount of repair and installation operations. However, the first step on this journey was 18 March 1965. It was on this day that the Soviet pilot-cosmonaut Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov was the first earthman to leave the spacecraft. He stayed in space for just 12 minutes, 9 seconds, but in the exploration of the universe this event rightfully took second place after the legendary flight of Gagarin.
Aleksey Arkhipovich 30 was born on May 1934 of the year in a small village called Listvyanka located six hundred kilometers north of the city of Kemerovo. His grandfather, who was exiled by the tsarist government after the 1905 revolution of the year, lived here for a long time. Alexey's parents came to the Donbas - first, mother, and after the Civil War ended, father - Leonov Arkhip Alekseevich. Mother, Evdokia Minaevna, worked as a village teacher, her father, formerly a miner from Donetsk, settled down as chairman of the village council. Alexey was the ninth child.
In 1936, a denunciation was written on Arkhip Alekseevich. According to the article “Enemy of the People” without trial, he was sent to a Siberian camp, and a mother with eight children (one of the Leonov sisters, Vera, died in infancy) and the ninth in a position were driven out of the house with confiscation of all property. The children were also expelled from school. The future cosmonaut said: “At that time, my elder sister lived in Kemerovo and worked on the construction of a CHP plant. There she married a boy from Mogilev - he also worked at a construction site and studied at a technical school. They had a room in the hut. In the thirty-degree frost, my sister's husband came to take us on the sledge, spread out a sheepskin coat, put us eight and covered us with a sheepskin coat on top ... So we found ourselves in the Kemerovo barrack - eleven people in a sixteen-meter room. The guy was 22 of the year - a simple worker, a student, he sheltered the family of the enemy of the people. Well, what courage it was necessary to have ... ". In 1939, Arkhip Alekseevich was rehabilitated and returned home. The Leonov family slowly began to stand up. And soon a decree was issued on supporting mothers of many children. All in the same hut they were given two rooms - sixteen and eighteen square meters.
In 1943, Alexey Arkhipovich went to elementary school No. 35. Among the main hobbies of the young Alexei at that time was the painting of old Russian stoves, which he learned from migrants from Ukraine who lived in the neighborhood. Once, when he was already at school, Leonov saw a book from his classmate with black-and-white illustrations of Aivazovsky’s paintings and had a burning desire to purchase it. It cost him a lot - Alexei had to pay a gram of bread and a sugar cube every day at 50 school to him for a month. Since then, Aivazovsky became his favorite artist.
In 1947, the Leonov family moved to a new place - in the city of Kaliningrad. Here, in 1953, Alexei graduated from high school number 21, having received his matriculation certificate. By that time, he was already very keen on flying, knew the ins and outs of famous aviators, reviewed all the films about pilots, and independently made aircraft models. According to the notes of the elder brother of Peter, the former aviation technician, Alexey Arkhipovich with enviable persistence studied the basics of flight theory, aircraft engines and aircraft designs. In combination with outstanding sporting achievements, this was the key that opened the doors of the flight school to the guy. In August 1953, Leonov was enrolled in the tenth Military Aviation School for initial pilot training, located in the city of Kremenchug (Poltava region), which he successfully graduated in 1955. In connection with the extraordinary abilities shown, he was sent to Ukraine in the city of Chuguev at the higher military school of fighter pilots. And from 1957 to 1959, Alexey served in the 69th Air Army of the Tenth Guards Division, located on the territory of Ukraine.
At the end of the summer of 1959, Colonel Karpov, the future head of the Cosmonaut Training Center, arrived in the division of Leonov. He invited several pilots, including Alexei Arkhipovich, to his conversation. By the way, the day before the aviator got into a serious accident, which happened due to the failure of the hydraulic system of the MiG-15bis fighter. Oil alternator flooded, and disconnected the entire group of navigation devices. With difficulty orienting, Leonov immediately sent the plane to the airfield. When he had already flown the distant drive, the Fire indicator was lit and the siren started to work. Leonov knew that in such a situation it was necessary to eject, but at a height of two hundred meters it was pure suicide. The pilot was landing, knowing full well that an explosion could happen at any moment. On the near drive, he cut off the fuel supply and sat down with the engine off. Alexey Arkhipovich did not reach the strip about three hundred meters, but he taxied on it and stopped. As a result, the aircraft did not receive any damage, and the fire, as it turned out, was not at all - the indication worked, because the oil sucked into the compressor.
At the meeting, Colonel Karpov, without explaining his intentions, asked about the health of Leonov and his plans for the future. Alexey Arkhipovich noted that he is completely healthy and thinks to keep flying. Then the colonel invited him to enter the test pilot school. The call came on 2 in October 1959, and two days later, Leonov arrived in Sokolniki at the Aviation Hospital (CVNIAG) for a medical examination. There he saw Yuri Gagarin for the first time: “I went into the ward and found that not one - a man of my age was sitting on a stool, naked to the waist, and reading. What struck me most was that he read ... Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." In 1959, even from the reading elite, very few people knew about this writer, and here the pilot ... He looked at me with big smiling blue eyes and introduced himself: "Senior Lieutenant Yuri Gagarin." After a short time, the pilots became close friends. Already after the death of the first cosmonaut, Leonov said: “He didn’t stand out in any way, but it was impossible to pass him by anyway — get up and look. Simple speech, classic Russian language, understandable and memorable. Only later I understood what an extraordinary person it was - he grasped everything on the fly, had an amazing system analysis, was obligatory, hardworking, devoted to friendship ... ”.
Numerous, often grueling examinations were conducted at the hospital over Leonov. Alexey Arkhipovich said: “From my point of view, a lot of nonsense was allowed during the survey. Among the doctors there were people engaged in scientific work and taking astronauts as material for their dissertations. Because of any nonsense, which was later canceled, we lost a lot of talented guys .... If we apply the old medical requirements for the latest sets of cosmonauts, then probably no one would have passed ... After I became a manager, I revised a lot with the same doctors, weakened the requirements. ”
In spite of everything, in 1960, Leonov was accepted into the first cosmonaut detachment. Months of strenuous training were drawn up in order to prepare for the upcoming flights, during which participants continued to undergo various medical experiments, often unreasonably cruel: “The centrifuge maneuvers were accompanied by very large overloads reaching 14g. This is a crazy load. On the back after such workouts there were hemorrhages, hemorrhages were present both inside and on soft tissues. In general, all this did not add to health. ” During one of these tests, Alexei Arkhipovich was placed in a deafbarokamera for fifteen days. He was glued to the body with an unknown paste for electrical conductivity. Further, from the words of an astronaut: “I wake up on the tenth day and see that the whole sheet is in blood. I look, and a couple of sensors fell off and with them the tatters of my skin. At the places where they were glued, there is no epidermis left - only muscles twitching in the rhythm of the heartbeat. Two months healed these places. I cut off the rest of the zinc sensors and put them on the shelf in order to show after experience who needs .... But on the thirteenth day, oxygen began to run out, the experiment was stopped, and I was removed from there. When I returned to the camera for the sensors, they were no longer there .... There was no physical evidence. The same audience later burned Bondarenko ... ”.
Another incident occurred during the casting of the astronaut's lodgement. During this operation, Leonov had to lie down naked in a trough, which was then filled with liquid gypsum with a temperature of about 10 degrees. He lay in this icy sour cream, which gradually hardened and heated. The most important thing was not to miss the moment when the plaster began to harden. And it was with him that moment they missed: “And they began to pick me out. And then every hair is an anchor. It doesn’t come out, then it was jerked off - and in the pieces of plaster, along with the hair, skin remains. ”
In the 1963 year, after six single-seat ships of the Vostok type (including the Vostok 6 with Valentina Tereshkova) visited the planet's orbit, the design bureau, headed by Korolev, began designing the new spacecraft of the same series, but designed for three places. Simultaneously with the preparation of the flight (which was successfully completed in October 1964, Komarov, Feoktistov and Egorov), on the basis of the Voskhod design, it was decided to create a two-seater ship that would allow a person to go into the airless space. The place vacated after the dismantling of the third chair was used as a platform for putting on the spacesuit, as well as the entrance to the airlock.
By the way, it was originally supposed to conduct experiments with animals. After depressurization of the box, the beast in it and dressed in a spacesuit had to make an independent exit (or intended to push it) out of the spacecraft with the obligatory subsequent return for research. However, such a step was refused. First, there were questions of developing a special spacesuit for the animal. Secondly, such an experiment did not give an answer to the main question: whether a person is able to move and orient himself in such an unusual situation.
As a result of consideration of various technical solutions, the choice was given to the use of a lock chamber, which is a small space, isolated from all sides. The astronaut, dressed in a spacesuit, was supposed to be in it until all the air surrounding him was released. After that, he will be able to open the hatch leading out. The return to the ship proceeded in the reverse order - the airlock closed outside and inside was gradually filled with air, after which the inner hatch opened and the astronaut got into the ship’s cabin. The airlock itself was inflatable, located outside the body of the aircraft. During its entry into orbit, it was placed under the fairing in a collapsed form, and before descending to Earth its main part was shot, and the spacecraft reached the dense layers of the atmosphere in its usual form, except for a small growth in the area of the access hatch. The tests showed that the compartment ballistics was not affected.
In parallel with the changes of the Voskhod spacecraft, two crews of cosmonauts were trained for the flight: Pavel Belyaev with Aleksey Leonov and their backups, Viktor Gorbatko and Yevgeny Khrunov. It is curious that the selection of the crew took into account not only the tasks and objectives of the flight, its complexity and duration, but also the psychological, individual characteristics of the astronauts presented by psychologists. The crew of the Voskhod 2 spacecraft presented special requirements for the criteria of coherence and harmony. It was assumed that such a difficult task as going out of a ship’s cabin into open space through a lock chamber could be solved only with full trust, mutual understanding and faith in each other. In accordance with the research of psychologists, Belyaev was characterized as a strong-willed and seasoned person who does not panic even in the most difficult situations, showing tremendous perseverance and logical thinking in achieving his goals. Leonov, in turn, belonged to the choleric type, was impetuous, bold, resolute, and easily developed vigorous activity. In addition, his artistic gift, the ability to quickly memorize the paintings presented to his gaze, and then to reproduce them very accurately, was noted. These two people, having different characters, perfectly complemented each other, creating, according to psychologists, a “highly compatible group” capable of successfully accomplishing their task and compiling a detailed account of all the problems and surprises associated with being in space.
To go into space, a special spacesuit was also created, called the “Golden Eagle”. Unlike the spacesuits, which flew on the "Vostok", he had an additional hermetic shell, which increases overall reliability. Being, in fact, a thermos, it consisted of layers of aluminum-coated plastic film. The top jumpsuit was sewn from multi-layer metallized fabric. The suit was heavily weighted - the weight system was added by the life support system, which was placed in the dorsal knapsack and included a ventilation system and two two-liter oxygen tanks. In addition, a backup oxygen system was installed in the airlock just in case, which is connected with a hose to a spacesuit. The suit's color has also changed - to better reflect the sun's rays, the orange color was changed to white, and a light filter was installed on the helmet. Alexey Arkhipovich recalled: “In December of 1963, we visited the Korolev experimental design bureau. Sergei Pavlovich met us, led us to the workshop, and showed us a mock-up of the Voskhod, equipped with some kind of unusual camera. Seeing our surprise, he explained that this is the gateway to exit into outer space. Then Sergey Pavlovich asked me to put on a new spacesuit and try to perform a series of experiments. After two hours of work, during which I had to work in order, I met Korolev again. I remember, I told him that the task can be fulfilled, you just need to think things through well. ”
The total weight of the “suit for going out” was about a kilogram of 100, however, under weightless conditions, this did not play a significant role. Problems were created by the pressure of the air that filled the hermetic enclosure and made the spacesuit unyielding and rigid. The astronauts had to overcome the resistance of their vestments with great effort. Alexey Arkhipovich recalled: “Only in order to squeeze a hand in a glove, it was necessary to apply an effort in 25 kilogram”. In this regard, all the time of preparation for the flight, special importance was attached to physical fitness - the astronauts performed daily runs, intensively engaged in weightlifting and gymnastics. In addition, the complex of training for more perfect control of your body included jumping into the water, exercising on a trampoline, parachuting, exercises on a rotating "Zhukovsky bench." The conditions for short-term real weightlessness were created for astronauts - in an airplane flying along a special trajectory. Leonov said: “In the huge cabin of the TU-104 a mockup of the 2 Rising cabin was installed, having a full-size airlock. The plane swooped down, accelerated and left steeply upward, performing a “hill” during which weightlessness set in. Its “quality” depended entirely on the skill of the pilots, who, relying only on the data of their vestibular apparatus, forced the plane to fly exactly on a parabola. With each such maneuver, weightlessness lasted just over twenty seconds. During the hour and a half of the flight, five such slides were made, gaining a total of two minutes of weightlessness .... Many times we took off into the air, step by step over these short periods of time honing all the details of entering the ship’s cabin and leaving the airlock. ”
Interestingly, in those years there were many scientific theories about human behavior in outer space. Some experts quite seriously argued that the astronaut would inevitably "weld" to the spacecraft. Similar concerns were based on experiments on cold welding conducted in vacuum. Other scientific luminaries believed that a person, having lost his usual support, could not make a single movement behind the ship. Still others believed that the endless space would have an extremely negative impact on the astronaut's psyche ... In reality, no one knew exactly how space would meet man, including the Chief Designer. Daredevils who dared to leave the cozy surface of the earth could only rely on themselves and the equipment that had flown away with them. No rescue systems yet existed - it was impossible to either dock, or get out of one ship, and go through the airless space to another. Korolev told astronauts: "It will be difficult - make your own decisions, depending on the situation." The crew, as a last resort, was allowed to confine themselves to opening the hatch and placing a hand overboard.
18 March 1965, after three years of preparation, the ship "Voskhod 2" with Alexey Leonov and Pavel Belyaev successfully launched from Baikonur. After entering orbit, at the end of the first orbit, Alexey Arkhipovich began to prepare for going into outer space. Belyaev helped him with a life-support knapsack, and then filled the airlock. When Leonov went into the airlock, Pavel Ivanovich closed the hatch behind him and conducted a depressurization of the chamber. Only the last step remained ... Having gently pushed off, Alexey Leonov "swam" out of the airlock. Finding himself in space, he gently moved his legs and arms - the movements were carried out easily, and then he stretched his arms to the sides, began to soar in a vacuum of space, connected with the ship with a five-meter halyard. During the flight over the Volga, Pavel Ivanovich connected the telephone in the cosmonaut's spacesuit to the broadcast of Moscow Radio - at that time Levitan read out the TASS message about the first man’s exit into space. A couple of television cameras watched Leonov from the ship, and he also filmed using a portable camera. For these materials, the film was already mounted on Earth. Also at the disposal of the astronaut was a miniature camera series Ajax, capable of taking pictures through a button. She was given to the crew of the ship "Sunrise 2" with the permission of the KGB chairman. This camera was controlled remotely with a cable, but due to the deformations that occurred in the spacesuit, Leonov could not reach it.
Five times Alexey Arkhipovich flew off and returned to the ship. In the spacesuit all this time the “room” temperature was maintained, and this despite the fact that its outer surface was cooled to –100 ° in the shade, and warmed up to + 60 ° С in the sun. When Alexey Arkhipovich saw the Yenisei and Irtysh, Belyaev gave the order to return. However, it was not so easy to do this - the astronaut's spacesuit was inflated in a vacuum. He himself described what happened: “The pressure in the spacesuit reached 600 mm, outside 10. It was impossible to model such conditions on Earth. Neither the thick fabric nor the stiffeners could stand it - the spacesuit was so swollen that the legs came out of the boots, and the hands - from the gloves. We, of course, assumed that this would happen, but did not think so strongly. ” A critical situation arose: Leonov could not get into the airlock hatch, and there was no time left to talk with the Earth - the oxygen supply was calculated for 20 minutes. Belyaev was aware of everything, but could not help. And then Alexey Arkhipovich, violating all instructions, independently relieved the pressure in the spacesuit and “swam” into the gateway with his face (and not his legs, as it should be) ahead.
Unfortunately, abnormal situations did not end there. After the astronaut returned to the ship, despite the fact that the closure sensors worked, the hatch cover was not covered tightly enough. Due to the constant undercuts of air from the ship, the regeneration system, while working on its program, began to build up pressure. Soon the level of oxygen in the cabin rose above the critical level. The astronauts did everything that depended on them - they removed the humidity, lowered the temperature to 10 ° C, however, they could not determine the cause of the malfunction and earned oxygen poisoning. When the total pressure reached the 920 mm mark, the hatch was in place. Shortly thereafter, the oxygen pressure in the cabin of the ship returned to normal.
According to the plan, the descent of the 2 Rising was to be carried out automatically, but before that it was necessary to disconnect the gateway camera. Having fastened, Leonov and Belyaev made the necessary actions, but a strong blow at the time of the shooting spun the spacecraft in two planes. This, in turn, led to off-design angular accelerations and failure of the orientation and auto-stabilization systems. At that moment, “Sunrise 2” was over Australia, and the astronauts had no connection with the Center. After consulting, they decided to turn off the self-timer system and land the ship in manual mode. Up to this point no one has landed in manual mode yet. Already after the astronauts began to perform orientation, communication was restored, and the crew requested permission to land in manual mode. After some time Gagarin himself answered them, saying that permission had been given. It is curious that the viewer, through which it was possible to carry out orientation, was in relation to the seated cosmonauts at an angle of 90 degrees, forcing them to control the spacecraft, turning sideways. In violation of all the instructions, one of the astronauts had to unleash, get out of the chair, lie across the cabin and, looking out the window, explain to another the position of the Earth.
In the end, the ship "Sunrise 2" successfully landed two hundred kilometers north of Perm. The TASS report called it a landing in a “spare area”, which was actually a deaf taiga. Leonov said: “Why did we end up not at a calculated point? We ourselves determined the landing site for security reasons, all possible deviations displaced the point to safe areas. As a result, at a speed of 28 thousands of kilometers per hour, we landed only 80 kilometers from our own designated place. In my opinion, this is a good result. ” The astronauts were not immediately found, because as such, the search service in those years was not yet. The helicopters could not sit down because of the tall trees, they also could not lose warm clothing. The astronauts spent the night alone in a wild snow-covered forest: “We took out the spacesuits and argued for screen-vacuum thermal insulation. They threw out the hard part, and put the remaining nine layers of deuteron-coated aluminized foil on themselves. From above, like two sausages, they were wrapped in parachute lines. So they sat all the first night. ” The next day, not far from the landing site, the landing of rescuers on skis descended into undergrowth. They made their way to the astronauts in deep snow and cut down the forest under the landing area for the helicopter. Only on the third day, Leonov and Belyaev were taken to Baikonur.
The Chief Designer gave an assessment of the feat accomplished by the astronauts: “Before the crew of the 2 Voskhod, the most difficult task was set, completely different than in previous flights. The future of cosmonautics depended on its successful implementation ... The flight showed that people can get out of the ship and live in free space, work as it should be necessary ... ". At the state commission, Alexey Arkhipovich delivered a report, which became the shortest in the history of cosmonautics: “You can live and work in the open space”.
In domestic practice, the flight of the 2 Rise is considered to be one of the most intense. At the celebration of the 35 anniversary of going into space, the outstanding designer and associate of the Queen, Boris Chertok, told Leonov: “You survived by a miracle! It was all so "raw", so incomprehensible .... After the start, Korolev went and repeated: “Where have I sent them!”. So - congratulations! ” By the way, the Americans also planned a man’s entry into outer space and intended to be the first to implement it. The exit of the Soviet cosmonaut into space by the US government regarded it as another challenge and intensified all its efforts. Information about the upcoming NASA flight was announced by 25 on May 1965 of the year, and Gemini 3 was launched on June 4 with astronauts White and McDivitt on board. On the American device there was no airlock, before opening the entrance hatch, the astronauts had to pump out all the air from the cabin. White swam out into open space, while McDivitt filmed it with a movie camera. With the ship of the American tied the fal for a length of seven and a half meters, through it also received oxygen for breathing.
From 1965 to 1967, Alexey Arkhipovich was the deputy commander of the cosmonaut corps, and from 1967 to 1970 he was part of the group that was trained under the flyby program (Proton-Probe) and landed on the Earth satellite (Х1-Л3). The flight date of the 7 probe has already been set to 8 on December 1968, but in the end it was canceled because the carrier and the ship were not working. As a result, the priority remained for the Americans who made the same 21-27 flight in December 1968. In the future, Alexey Arkhipovich was one of two candidates for participation in the program for the landing of a Soviet cosmonaut on the surface of the moon, which was also canceled. During the period from 1971 to 1973, Leonov was trained five times as commander of space flight crews for various programs, but for reasons beyond his control, all of them were canceled.
In 1969, Alexey Arkhipovich unexpectedly became an unwitting witness to the attempt on Leonid Brezhnev. 22 On January, Moscow met the crews of the Soyuz 4 and 5 Soyuz, who had returned from orbit just a few days before. The car, in which astronauts Leonov, Nikolaev, Beregovoy and Tereshkova were sitting, was fired upon by a junior lieutenant Viktor Ilyin on the road from the airport to the Kremlin, who decided that the General Secretary was in their car. Fortunately, Alexei Arkhipovich was not injured, although Georgi Beregovoy’s face was cut up with glass fragments, and Andrian Nikolayev was wounded in the back.
At the end of 1972, the superpowers of the USSR and the USA decided to carry out a joint space flight and during the course of it dock the ships of two different countries. Each side determined the astronaut selection criteria independently, but the necessary conditions were: the highest professional qualifications, deep knowledge in the field of technology, ability to work with the equipment and systems of both ships, excellent knowledge of the language of the partner country and readiness to conduct an extensive program of scientific observations and experiments. The Soviet Union was represented by Leonov (commander of the crew) and Kubasov, the USA - Stafford, Brand and Slayton. Alexey Arkhipovich recalled: “The flight under the ASTP program was extremely politicized. It all started with a terrible mistrust. The program was led by the United States by David Scott. He just told everyone how bad everything is with us. Once I took him to "talk": "Dear David, you know that we are fulfilling the will of our peoples. We have been entrusted with such a difficult task, and we must do everything we can. No need to look for that and who is bad. I can also tell you what's bad with you. ” The next time we got together, Scott was gone, and Cernan became the program manager. ” In July, 1975 joint EPAS program flight was successfully implemented, opening a new era in space exploration. For the first time in history, the docking of the Soviet "Union 19" and the American "Apollo" was held, many medical and biological, astrophysical, geophysical and technological experiments were conducted.
Major General Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov resigned in March 1992 of the year. Until 2000, he worked as president of the Alfa Capital investment fund, and then moved to the position of vice president of Alfa Bank. Now the legendary cosmonaut lives in a country house near Moscow, which he designed and built himself.
During his long and intensive career, Alexey Arkhipovich participated in many international congresses and scientific conferences, made about thirty reports, wrote several books. He owns four inventions and over a dozen scientific papers in the field of astronautics. Leonov is twice the Hero of the Soviet Union and the holder of many orders and medals, an honorary citizen of more than thirty cities in the world. For more than two decades, Alexey Arkhipovich has been collaborating with the Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation, transferring from his personal collection unique documents about joint training of Soviet cosmonauts and American astronauts, as well as many amateur films about domestic space explorers.
With his future wife, Svetlana Pavlovna Dotsenko, Alexey Arkhipovich met while studying at an aviation school. Subsequently, they had two girls, Oksana and Victoria. The most favorite hobby of Leonov all his life was and still is painting, which the astronaut got carried away in his early years. Leonov is the author of over two hundred paintings and five art albums, among which are dominated by cosmic landscapes, but there are also earthly landscapes, as well as portraits of friends. The cosmonaut prefers to work with watercolor, Dutch gouache and oil. Leonov also collected a large library of art, including many rare books, he visited all the largest foreign art galleries and museums, he was personally acquainted with Picasso. In 1965, Alexey Arkhipovich was elected a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR. His other hobbies include reading books, hunting, photography and filming. Leonov - the owner of the second category in cycling and the third category in fencing, professionally engaged in javelin throwing and athletics.
Alexey Arkhipovich ends his book “Going into Space” with these words: “Going into space is one of the most complex operations in orbit, requiring great skill, thorough preparation and great courage. I watch on TV the current astronauts, listen to their reports to Earth, and each time I relive my flight. I envy them and with all my heart I wish you success. "
Based on materials from the site http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/ and from an interview with an astronaut on http://www.pravoslavie.ru/ and http: //88.210.62.157/content/numbers/237/40.shtml
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