International Soviet spacemen well, but struggling to adjust

Press, 21 August 1979, Page 9

International Soviet spacemen well, but struggling to adjust

NZPA-Reuter Moscow Two Soviet cosmonauts, back on Earth after a record-breaking six months in orbit, will probably have to wait several days before seeing their families again. Lieutenant-Colonel Vladimir Lyakhov and Engineer Valery Ryumin were given a quick medical check after making a smooth landing aboard their Soyuz 34 craft in the green steppe country of Kazakhstan at the end of man’s longest space flight They are likely to stay at the Baikonur cosmodrome while their bodies, particularly the heart and circulatory system readjust to life back on Earth. After more medical checks they will fly to Moscow for reunions with their families, and they will also receive the top award of Hero of the Soviet Union. Their 175-day mission, the longest by more than a month of the three longstay expeditions that have been aboard the Salyut 6 station, is being hailed as a significant step towards the goal of a permanentlymanned space laboratory. All went smoothly as their capsule undoeked from the Salyut 6 space station and re-entered the atmosphere. All local air traffic was halted, and high-tension power lines were switched off as a fleet of recovery helicopters hovered over the target area and the Soyuz drifted down on a big red-and-white parachute. The cosmonauts in their white spacesuits were then dragged from the capsule to reclining chairs, where they lay back and breathed fresh air for the first time since February 25. A nurse gave each of them a bunch of wild flowers which they sniffed eagerly. But Ryumin admitted that the shock of encountering gravity again was proving more than he expected. “In the descent the force of gravity is supposed to be four times normal, but it felt to us like eight. Now we feel as though it’s still two or three, and it’s difficult to get the tongue round words.” Ryumin said. Lyakhov, aged 38, and Ryumin, aged 40 patched up the Salyut station’s weak points and renewed several units, so it may well be used again by another crew. The cosmonauts won the praise of their mission controllers for the way they worked in tough conditions of isolating for so long without flagging. Plans for visits by other crews came to nothing after a rocket failure aboard a Soyuz craft in April, but Lyakhov and Ryumin were helped by having for the first time the capacity to watch television programmes transmitted from Earth.