o>
ew

rene

me through the
3 : gap between the
‘ea of brightness and the Earth.

Be not sparkle in space. They
Man wh somewhat duller and larger
ember - seen from Earth. We re-
: methin, about our breakfast when
ou 4 seemed to suck in the pits
Pa Omachs. But again we did
1p Ron Our country was appear-
iss it W and we did not want to
ARg Over our land I reported to
nist a committee of the Com-
arty and to the Soviet gov-
ions: a, We received congratula-
» and the three of us raised our

aSSes * a8
Teakfast. juice. We enjoyed our

ATURE presented us with a de-
ghtful picture after breakfast.
i ae Watched the sunrise. A pale

feo and a bright, reddish
Sudden across the entire horizon.
Rent ad a bright line became prom-
n the boundary of this zone

ui
Potested 2m into a_ greatly

Ane sun rose over the horizon.
hin € so blinding that one can-

a it directly, even for a
ole. tt put my hand on the port-

Was radiating heat like a
hting © switched off the electric
4s the sunshine which flood-

ou :
% ah provided enough light

“if We were flyi th
out ying over the
fellow (the third or fourth time)
Atter in White colors seemed to
Ret, « CUr cabin. I jumped to my
ln Peon’ What’s that?” Konstan-
e,  Stov was glued to the port-
“Te.
Mlaineg the polar lights,” he ex-

hwhite staordinary sight. Yellow-
Were, eae of various sizes
ays, 6 er the horizon. They were
Course, and between them
S of somewhat darker color.

We
5 t Were the first cosmonauts to

pcre Sap,

© col i
: ai did not play or change—

a :
*ribeq uae radiance. Later we de-
WS had 5 m our log. Every one of
f) fen it in his own way.

y We g
x bserved another interesting

Ri
/ firs ae training precedes all space flights. Here Valentina Tereshkova,
(the oh to make the flight into space (1963), trains in a space suit. But
. Members of the Voskhod wore no space suits in their air-tight cabin.

phenomenon — luminous particles.
Our fellow cosmonauts had told us
about them and the American astro-
naut John Glenn had also observed
them.

We saw them right next to our
ship, not more than a metre away,
shining like little beams from a pen-
cil of light cast upon an emerald.
They were as bright as little stars.
But they looked like light dots. They
were floating about the ship, .some-
times from opposite directions to-
ward each other.

I saw one particle move away from
the ship as if it had been torn from
the hull. We looked at them for a
long time and tried to guess where
they came from. Perhaps they “live”
in space? The most probable answer
is that they are dust particles we had
brought into space with our ship.

There was another thing which
greatly impressed us—lightning over
Africa. It was night and the moon
seemed to be shining brightly upon
the Earth. We could see clouds and
parts of our planet. I moved close to
the porthole and saw that Boris had
done the same. Feoktistov was
asleep. :

We had an immense field of vision
and the great globe of Earth was di-
rectly beneath us. Suddenly we saw
lightning flare up under the clouds.
The latter seemed to be lit from be-
low by a flash, and still another. It
was extremely interesting.

And then we looked for a long
time at our planet. What beauty! The
colors were constantly changing. I
liked the Himalayas with their even,
long, snow-clad ranges looking like
fir trees in winter dress. Antarctica
looked as if it was covered with ice
“crumbs.” Actually each of these
“crumbs” is an immense iceberg.

The oceans have different colors—
grayish, blueish, greenish-black. Lakes
look like little, bright-blue and some-
times green specks, Tibet has the
color of a brown bear skin. We saw
the Congo River — even from that
distance we could see that it is a
turbid river — the water is grayish
and shot with black. Then the south-
ern part of Madagascar became visi-
ble in the porthole.

Almost the whole world presented
itself to our eyes. It seems amazing
How could our eyes absorb so many
things? And at the same time ther¢
is the thought that 24 ‘ours is not

enough. We’d like to look again and
see more. Man is hungry for all that
is amazing and unusual. He wants to
see and understand as much as pos-
sible.

Our comrades now ask: “How did
you manage to see so much?” The
answer is simple. There were three
of us. While one is asleep the other
two are on watch and always notice
something extraordinary.

We made our flights without space
suits, which means we had more free-
dom of movement. We could move
to the porthole every time there was
something worth seeing.

And we rested very little. We con-
sidered that we would have our rest
on Earth; but here in space we ought
to observe, to work to full capacity.

I had been impatiently awaiting
the moment when I would get a
spaceship to pilot. And then the
long-awaited moment arrived. Now I
say the same thing as the other cos-
monauts. It is easy and a pleasure to
pilot. the ship. I liked the way it
would take one or another position.
You see a star through the porthole
and if you don’t want to lose sight
of it you just turn the ship at an
angle and keep the star in your field
of vision. The ship can be orientated
with the aid of controls so as to have
a good vision of the Earth.

Intensive work made us oblivious
to time. I wished to repeat Goethe’s
“Stop, instant, you are beautifull”
But we have no power to accomplish
that.

UR food is called cosmic food.
But it was all just everyday
and earthly. There was meat, pie,

and juices for dinner. True, these
meals come in tubes and special
packages. But that’s only the pack-
ing. =i3t

Our-appetites were good, much like
on Earth. We had our fun at dinner
too; taking advantage of weightless-
ness we would send the tubes and
packets with -food toward each other
by air — just push them and they
would float over to your neighbor.
The tubes with juices travelled from’
place to place all the time. One of
them — the largest — floated the
longest. We christened it “Sputnik.”

Boris Yegorov was the first to go
to sleep. I saw his arms rise toward
the ceiling and his fingers come
apart. This seemed unnatural. But it:
did not trouble Boris. He hadn’t even:
noticed it. Konstantin and I looked
at him and smiled. ~

I have been asked whether I felt.

the altitude, the distance from Earth,
and whether it hadn’t been rather un-
comfortable to fly in the black sky,
in cold space. I didn’t even think of
it. I was quite comfortable in the
ship. And there were three of us.
Space did not frighten us. It was ex-
tremely interesting. We were there
to study and explore it. :

Our 24-hour trip was coming to an
end. The.Earth had not given us per-
mission to stay and do overtime
work. The solar orientation system
worked excellently. We could sense
how the ship was “searching” for the
sun. It turned and turned and then
stopped dead, as if happy to have
found a point of reference. We got
into our chairs and into the fasten-
ing straps. Boris raised a strap and
let it go. It fell, Weightlessness had
disappeared. -—* :

‘The rocket shivered a bit; there was a slight noise — are we off 2”

“I saw the Earth. Little pieces
peeped through the film of clouds
There was nothing but steppe and
forest below.”

Then we heard the brake drive
work. A slight noise, then came the
overloads. The instrument compart-
ment detached itself with a metallic,
gnashing sound. We waved goodbye
to it.

HE ship started gradually enter-
.ing denser layers of atmosphere
Through our portholes we could

see luminescence—first of a pale pink
color, then bright orange, followed
by carrot red. Through it we could
observe the Earth and the horizon.
We looked at everything around us
with great interest.

During descent the overloads are
rather great. Slight vibration is also
noticeable. But when you are sitting
tied to your chair this shaking does
not trouble you.

We passed the sound barrier in the
reverse direction. The overloads
grew markedly lower. There was a
jerk — the breaking parachute had
come out. Some time later the land-
ing chute opened and there were no
overloads any more.

We looked through the portholes—
white, cotton-like clouds all around
us, the same clouds one sees from
an airplane. “Get ready, we are go-
ing to land!” We knew it was going
to be a soft landing; but we got
ready for a strong shock. We landed
unexpectedly; there was a rustle un-
der us.and a scratching against the .
sand; then came an amazing silence.
“Have we really landed?”

We got out of the ship. Someone
said: “It’s cool on Earth, isn’t it?”
Yes, it was rather cool and moist.
The day was cloudy. We huddled up
in the cold and went back into the
ship to get our jackets.

Then we were surrounded by peo-
ple. Three trucks and a tractor came
to a stop. People were working in
the fields nearby and heard that cos-
monauts had landed in this area. Now
there were about 20 people here.
They congratulated us on our safe
return.

We heard a roar. A helicopter was
landing, and a couple of minutes
later people we knew were running
toward us. A doctor friend of Boris’
was hugging him.

There is no use recounting what
happened then. Everybody knows. I
just want to say the Earth has given
us a warm welcome and we are deep-
ly grateful.

March 5, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7