Orchids gave cosmonauts joy

Press, 8 January 1983, Page 8

Orchids gave cosmonauts joy

NZPA Moscow . Gardening in space, recordings of bird songs, and even some visitors had made life easier for two Soviet cosmonauts during their re-cord-setting 211 days in space last year, the two said yesterday. ♦ Lieutenant-Colonel Anatoly Berezovoy and Valery Lebedev, both 40, described their journey aboard, the orbiting Salyut 7 space station at a news conference to which Western reporters were invited to submit written questions. ?• “I never before wanted to grow' any plants, and for the first time in my life, I was taking care of a kitchen garden,” said Mr Lebedev, who had been a flight engineer on a 1973 space mission. He said that he had cultivated radishes, cucumbers and salad greens.” It was a psychological boost watching his crops respond to “a drop of water, which I had dropped.” It was the first time Western reporters were allowed a first-hand look at the spacemen, who landed in a blinding snowstorm in Soviet Central Asia on December 10 after breaking their country’s own world-space ehdur-. ance record by 26 days. : “Happiness was greatest when the French cosmonaut, Jean-Loup Chretien floated into the space station with a bouquet of orchids,” said Colonel Berezovoy. “That

was unexpected.” Commandant Chretien, the first nonAmerican Westerner in space, accompanied two other Soviet cosmonauts who spent a week aboard the space station in June. Colonel Berezovoy said that the cosmonauts,’ had been able to concoct some surprises of their own, experimenting with creating artificial fragrances. “By the time of the second visiting expedition we were able to create the smell of roses and Svetlana was very, very surprised, asking where we had roses in bloom,” he said. Svetlana Savitskaya, a

Soviet test pilot, became the second woman in space wher, she was launched in August. “We missed the smell ol flowers, the city noises, city smells,” Colonel Berezovoy said. Videotapes of the cosmonauts’ families and cassettes of birds singing had been among the welcome mail received from four resupply ships, he said. The cosmonauts said that they had encountered no serious problems during their 211-day flight. They had rested during their first five days in space, typical for long Soviet missions, then began exercising and preparing to work, they said. To

readapt to gravity after their return, they had eased into a routine of walking, swimming, massage, and steam baths for the muscles. Doctors said at the news conference that calcium loss should be reversed about the thirtieth day of their return. American space scientists say that after three months in space bones lose about a fifth of their volume in an unexplained space-acceler-ated ageing. Asked about the risk of long space voyages. Colonel Berezovoy said: “We should go further, we should advance, and I think our colleagues will pass through this unknown.” Soviet officials have not announced when the next manned voyage will be, but Vladimir Shatalov, head of cosmonaut training, said yesterday that a mission was planned for the “first half of 1984” for two Indian cosmonauts now training in the Soviet Union. That seemed to indicate that a new Soviet crew may be sent to Salyut 7 late this year to prepare for the Indians’ arrival. Meanwhile, Reuter reported that the Soviet Union would further extend the duration of its manned space missions.

Senior space officials said that the mission had been a great success and had shown that it was possible to move on to longer periods in orbit.