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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18 June 1937 Vitali Zholobov (RKA) Ukraine.

19 June 1933 Viktor Patsayev (RKA) Kazakhstan. Patsayev was a Soviet cosmonaut who operated the Orion 1 Space Observatory as part of 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, Patsayev died with the rest of the Soyuz 11 crew (Georgy Dobrovolsky 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.

20 June 1941 Ulf Merbold (ESA) Germany.

20 June 1945 James Buchli (NASA) US.

20 June 1948 Gary Payton (NASA) US.

20 June 1953 Brian Duffy (NASA) US.

20 June 1954 Ilan Ramon (ISA) Israel. Ramon was the first Israeli astronaut. He served as a Space Shuttle payload specialist on STS-107, the fatal mission of Columbia, in which he and the six other crew members were killed when the spacecraft disintegrated during re-entry. At 48, Ramon was the oldest member of the crew. He is the only foreign recipient of the United States Congressional Space Medal of Honor, which was awarded posthumously.

The following asteroids were named in memory of the other six members of STS-107: 51823 Rickhusband, 51824 Mikeanderson, 51825 Davidbrown, 51826 Kalpanachawla, 51828 Ilanramon and 51829 Williemccool. True heroes and icons in an age where the words lose their meaning.

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:STS-107_crew_in_orbit.jpg

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crew_of_STS-107,_official_photo.jpg

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Space_Shuttle_Columbia_tribute_poster.jpg

Space is hard.

Per aspera ad astra

(Through hardships to the stars)

21 June 1958 Gennady Padalka (RKA) Russia.

21 June 1964 Oleg Kononenko (RKA) Turkmenistan. Kononenko has become the first person to spend 1,000 days in space. He achieved the milestone on 4 June 2024, having made five journeys to the International Space Station dating back to 2008. As at the date and time of writing this blog (13 June 2024 @ 20:38 BST) he, along with 8 colleagues, is currently in space onboard the International Space Station (ISS). At the same time there are 3 Chinese colleagues onboard the Tiangong Space Station.

21 June 1965 Yang Liwei (CSNA) China. Liwei is a China National Space Administration astronaut. On 15 October 2003, he became the first person sent into space by the Chinese space program. This mission, Shenzhou 5, made China the third country to independently send humans into space.

22 June 1930 Yuri Artyukhin (RKA) Russia.

23 June 1930 Donn Eisele (NASA) US.

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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