Stargazing Guy

Follow for a weekly list of forthcoming astronaut* birthdays.

Maybe you share a birthday?!

If not, perhaps it will be you who adds your name to the list?!

If you do share a birthday, what does it mean to you?

Do you feel a connection, pride? They take to the skies (on controlled explosions) to improve the world, to explore (to travel to strange new worlds).

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27 May 1948 Aleksandr Volkov (RKA) Ukraine.

28 May 1944 Paul Scully-Power (NASA) Australia.

30 May 1958 Michael Lopez-Alegria (NASA) Spain.

30 May 1963 Helen Sharman (Project Juno) England. Helen Patricia Sharman, CMG, OBE, HonFRSC is a British chemist and astronaut who became the first British person, first Western European woman and first privately funded woman in space, as well as the first woman to visit the Mir space station, from 18 May 1991 (thank you Wikipedia).

30 May 1934 Alexey Leonov (RKA) Russia. On 18 March 1965, he became the first person to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for 12 minutes and 9 seconds. He was also selected to be the first Soviet person to land on the Moon although the project was cancelled. Leonov has been awarded numerous honours, among which having a 33-km diameter crater on the far side of the Moon named after him as well as a Main-belt asteroid (5154 Leonov) and the fictional spaceship exploring Jupiter in Arthur C. Clarke’s novel 2010: Odyssey Two.

1 June 1928 Georgiy Dobrovolskiy (RKA) Ukraine. Dobrovolsky was a Soviet cosmonaut who commanded the three-man crew of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft (6 June 1971) missions. Soyuz 11 had accomplished the first space station flight, two years before the US Skylab, and docked with the Salyut 1 scientific station. The planned 30-day stay was aborted due to a small fire and difficult working conditions. On 29 June 1971, Dobrovolsky died with the rest of the Soyuz 11 crew (Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov) during re-entry, due to a premature cabin decompression. The crew had no space suits to protect themselves. They are the only humans to have died in space.

USSR stamp: Cosmonauts Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev. Series: In Memory of Cosmonauts, Who Died During the “Soyuz 11” Space Mission, June 6-30, 1971. Text in red on top “подвиг героев будет жить века” means “Feat of heroes will live for centuries”.

“The American people join in expressing to you and the Soviet people our deepest sympathy on the tragic deaths of the three Soviet cosmonauts. The whole world followed the exploits of these courageous explorers of the unknown and shares the anguish of their tragedy. But the achievements of cosmonauts Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev remain. It will, I am sure, prove to have contributed greatly to the further achievements of the Soviet program for the exploration of space and thus to the widening of man’s horizons.”

United States president Richard Nixon’s official statement

Craters on the Moon were named after the three cosmonauts: Dobrovol’skiy, Volkov, and Patsaev. The names of the three cosmonauts are included on the Fallen Astronaut commemorative plaque placed on the Moon during the Apollo 15 mission in August 1971. To honour the loss of the Soyuz 11 crew, a group of hills on Pluto is also named Soyuz Colles.

Space is hard and the people who do mighty things risk their lives for science, humanity and the exploration of space.

Ad astra per aspera.

1 June 1950 Gennadi Manakov (RKA) Russia.

1 June 1954 Jeffrey Ashby (NASA) US.

2 June 1930 Pete Conrad (NASA) US. The third man to walk on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission in November 1969, and definitely born on 2 June 1930 (and not 2 May 1930 as supercluster.com appears to state) according to nasa.gov).

2 June 1956 Mark Polansky (NASA) US.

2 June 1978 Yi So-yeon (KAP) South Korea.

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Thanks to www.supercluster.com for the bios and links.

Also, thanks to www.pillownaut.com for the initial list of birthdays, and the many, many resources on the internet, especially Wikipedia and NASA.      

* = includes cosmonaut, taikonaut, parastronaut, spaceflight participant, space tourist, etc

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PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee, leave a message with a date and time and we can share it, remotely, at the same time, and think about the Cosmos.

In the meantime, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else, too, because as Adam Smith said, “we naturally desire not only to be loved but to be lovely”.

Remember, hope lives here.

Contact Stargazing Guy for any copyright-related requests or queries @ stargazer1@stargazingguy.co.uk