The attitude to the past of our country is ambiguous for different people. But no matter how opinions differ, the fact that the Soviet Union raised strong, talented, wonderful people, heroes not only of their time, is an indisputable fact. Our country was the first to seriously engage in the direct study of outer space. Cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky, whose biography is a continuous list of awards and achievements, is a bright representative of the national cohort of great people.
Today Valery Fedorovich is eighty, he is cheerful and friendly. With a smile and barely noticeable notes of sadness, he shares his experience, knowledge and achievements with his followers.
Childhood
On August 2, 1934, a child was born in the Bykovsky family, who was destined to become a famous cosmonaut. The family of the newborn at that time lived in Pavlovsky Posad. Father, Fedor Fedorovich - a former KGB officer, an employee of the Ministry of Railways. And her mother, Klavdia Ivanovna, devoted all her time to her family and home.
Valery Fedorovich is not the only child in the family, he has an older sisterMargarita Fedorovna (married Mikheeva).
As a child, Bykovsky had to change two schools. At first he attended school at the USSR Embassy in Tehran, and from the seventh grade he studied in Moscow.
From childhood, Valery Bykovsky raved about the stars and the sky. The cosmonaut began his stellar career when he entered the Moscow flying club as a young man. Then he successfully graduated from an aviation school in the Penza region. He was then 19 years old.
Education and first experience
Bykovsky the cosmonaut started his journey from the aerocoolub or "original", even before graduation. Exhausting training in any weather, the first flying experience and the adoption of the most important decision in life - that's what the Moscow flying club gave him. The characterization of Valery Fedorovich contained the most flattering reviews. The instructors also believed that this student loves to fly, does it boldly and confidently, learns science with enthusiasm and takes the initiative. Leaving his first flight school, Bykovsky (a cosmonaut in the near future) firmly decided to enroll in a fighter pilot school.
Studying at the Kachinsky Military Aviation School, of course, was harder and more serious. Practical classes were held at a fast pace, but Valery Fedorovich had time, he liked and studied very well. In all the characteristics of Bykovsky, there are only positive responses: hardy, well-oriented, initiative. All grades for theory and practice - "excellent".
Service
Thanks to perseverance and hard work, Bykovsky and in part quickly achieved success. Fast enough first lieutenanttransferred to the interceptor squadron. Valery Fedorovich recalls how missions, air attacks, combat alerts went, and notes how important it is to feel the people who are next to you, to trust them. When in the unit he flew on the MIG, he was 100 percent sure of the plane, thanks to the efforts of his technician Konkov.
The future cosmonaut Bykovsky acquired a lot of flight experience and good comrades during his years of service. His biography will be replenished with more and more striking and significant achievements for the whole country. Valery Fedorovich has been involved in sports since childhood: football, athletics, fencing. No less sports were carried away by his books. Valery Fedorovich perceived vocational education and self-education as one of the most important components in life, therefore he comprehended various fields of knowledge with pleasure. And in the Soviet army, in the circle of like-minded people, the same young, active, and purposeful pilots, he continued playing sports and self-improvement.
Unearthly Trials
Every Soviet boy dreamed of becoming a hero, serving for the good of the Fatherland, conquering peaks and exploring the unknown, and Bykovsky was no exception. An astronaut at heart and a pilot in life, he decides to try his hand and takes the train to his dream.
The first test that Valery Fedorovich faced was the medical commission. It is worth noting that the doctors conducting the selection and granting permission to fly are very attentive, strict and suspicious. If there is at leastthe slightest deviation from the required parameters, there will be no access to flights. Pilots, and even more so cosmonauts, undergo medical examinations on a regular basis. The excitement and tension at the doctor's offices is growing. How many guys parted there with their dream! But Bykovsky passed the first stage with ease, only with wishes of success and approving smiles of doctors.
The second stage is an imitation of possible situations in space. To do this, it was necessary to pass tests on various simulators, installations, in a pressure chamber. No one has succeeded in falsifying and deceiving nature and doctors. Only the strongest, most enduring and he althy were selected. So was Bykovsky. But this was only the beginning of a difficult journey.
A family of astronauts in Star City
In Star City, the regime of astronauts is strict: sports, loads, classes, simulators, medical examinations. The new team was very friendly, hardworking and purposeful. The comrades elected Bykovsky deputy secretary of the Komsomol committee. Valery Fedorovich's worries increased significantly, but this made his life even more interesting and eventful. Bykovsky acquired many friends and good comrades in those years. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and other equally famous people trained with him at Zvezdny.
One of the most difficult simulators for all future astronauts is a centrifuge. Its overload tested the capabilities of the human body, and Bykovsky showed remarkable results on it. He quickly learned the lessons and advice of coaches, doctors, so he achieved significant success.
One of the mostinteresting activities, perhaps, was the stay in weightlessness. And the most unusual, according to Valery Bykovsky (cosmonaut), was the development of the habit of being alone. In the isolation chamber measuring one and a half square meters, where, in addition to instruments and chairs, there were only food and books, he had to experience what awaits him in space. He worked, sang, declared poetry, read books, built tables. His first precosmic loneliness lasted more than three days. Bykovsky was the first to visit the isolation chamber.
Flights
Valery Fedorvovich made his first spacewalk on the Vostok-5 spacecraft. Commander Bykovsky spent almost five days in space in 1963. The second flight, on the Soyuz-21 spacecraft in 1976, where he was also the commander, took even longer - 189 hours. The third flight, on the Soyuz-31 spacecraft in 1978, was the same in duration.
20 days 17 hours in total for three flights, cosmonaut Bykovsky was not on planet Earth. Photos of Valery Fedorovich adorned all the newspapers, honorary boards of the Soviet Union. Every boy dreamed of being like him. And he still does not get tired of repeating the words of his father: "Labor is the pivot on which everything in a person rests."
