Word: romanenko
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...ground stations. Mir's position was marked by a blue-green light, which was moving slowly across the circle centered on Moscow. The flyby would take only eight minutes, after which the window of communication would close. The audio feed came through with startling clarity, as if Cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko were standing in the next room. "The work here is very interesting," he said in response to a question that had been posed in writing by TIME Correspondent Dick Thompson. "It brings us a lot of satisfaction...
...does Mir compare with earlier Soviet space stations? "There is much more space," said Romanenko. "There is even room that can be used for living room. Atmospheric conditions are better, and all the instruments provide for good fresh air. It's much better than Salyut." Before another question could be asked, the light left the Moscow circle; the window had closed. Though all too brief, it was an extraordinary, exclusive exchange between an American journalist and an orbiting Soviet cosmonaut...
Living aboard Salyut brought other hazards. In 1977, when Cosmonaut Georgi Grechko took a "space walk" outside the ship to look for some suspected damage, he suddenly saw his companion, Yuri Romanenko, drifting by. Romanenko, untethered to the spacecraft, had accidentally floated out of the cabin. Grechko caught Romanenko just as he was about to spin off into the void. On another flight, cosmonauts complained of repeated headaches. It turned out carbon dioxide was building up to dangerous levels in the cabin. The problem was solved by changing the air purifiers more often...
Only Cosmonaut Georgi Grechko, 46, had been slated to make a space walk; Romanenko was to remain behind at Salyut's open hatch. Both were wearing a new type of space suit equipped with a radio and an hour's supply of oxygen. Thus when cosmonauts are working outside an orbiting spacecraft, they require no umbilical link to the mother ship other than a simple tether to keep them from drifting off. Everything was going smoothly during Grechko's extraterrestrial stroll until Salyut passed over the western Pacific Ocean-out of range of Soviet ground stations. Suddenly...
...Romanenko took this daring plunge remains unknown. "Perhaps he got 'space rapture' or something," speculates a U.S. space official. In any case, Grechko reacted quickly. Making his way hand over hand along Salyut's rail, he managed to grab the end of Romanenko's safety line just in time. By then his comrade had floated about four meters (13 ft.) from Salyut. A few seconds later, Romanenko would have been beyond reach of his comrade's helping hand, drifting hopelessly in space...