Up for auction "Soviet Cosmonaut" Yuri Romanenko Hand Signed First Day Cover Dated 1982.  

ES-4418

Yuri Viktorovich Romanenko (Russian: Ю́рий Ви́кторович

Романе́нко; born 1 August 1944) is a former Soviet cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union (March

16, 1978 and September 26, 1980). Over his career, Yuri Romanenko spent a total

of 430 days 20 hours 21 minutes 30 seconds in space and 18 hours in space walks. In 1987 he was a resident of

the Mir space station, launching on Soyuz TM-2 and landing aboard Soyuz TM-3. He remained on Mir for 326 days that was the

longest stay in space at that time.[2] His son, Roman Romanenko is also a cosmonaut, and has become the

third second-generation space traveler on Soyuz TMA-15 in May 2009. Yuri Romanenko was born on

August 1, 1944 in Koltubanovskiy village in Orenburg Oblast, Soviet Union. His father was a senior commander on military

ships, and mother was a combat medic. His family later moved to Kaliningrad, where he graduated from a secondary school in

1961. His hobbies in school included building model aircraft and ships, boxing, shooting and underwater fishing. After school, he briefly

worked as a locksmith and

builder. In 1962 he enrolled at the Chernigov High Air Force School, Ukraine and graduated with honors in 1966. After

graduation, he remained with the School, training the students and practicing

as a candidate cosmonaut.[1] He was cleared for space flights in

1970, among only 16 other cosmonauts. His first flight was on December 10, 1977

on Soyuz 26 to the space station Salyut 6. A two-men crew consisted of Romanenko as the flight

commander and Georgi Grechko as

engineer. They spent 96 days and 10 hours on the orbit, meeting Soyuz 27, Soyuz 28 and Progress 1. During the mission, Romanenko performed a one and

a half hour long space walk. In

his second mission on September 18, 1980, together with the first Cuban

cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez,

Romanenko flew Soyuz 38 to Salyut 6 and returned 7 days later. With this flight,

Méndez was the first hispanophone and

first person of African descent in space. The

third and last flight of Romanenko was on Soyuz TM-2 with Aleksandr Laveykin on

February 6, 1987 to the Mir station. During that mission,

Romanenko spent 326 days aboard Mir, which was the longest stay in space then.

He conducted three space walks, on April 11, June 11 and June 16, 1987 with a

total duration 8 hr 48 min. He returned to Earth on December 29, 1987 in Soyuz TM-3. Romanenko

retired from flights in 1988 and became the director of Buran program, which was a Soviet alternative to the Space Shuttle. The program completed one flight in 1988 and

was cancelled in 1993. While

working in Salyut 6 station in 1977, Grechko and Romanenko had to perform

spacewalks at will to inspect the potential damage at the station, which

precluded docking of Soyuz 25. At some point, they were both in

their spacewalk suits in the airlock. Romanenko prepared for a spacewalk and

pushed against the wall flying outside, but forgot to attach his safety cord.

Grechko managed to grab the cord with one hand, stopping Romanenko. This

accident was dramatized in press due to the joke of Grechko who implied

Romanenko was on the verge of death.[4][5] However, the electrical cables

attaching Romanenko would have certainly stopped him from leaving the space

station.