Day off. We earned it. Slept until noon. Such pleasant languor in the body that I didn’t want to get up. My mother and Valera, my sister’s husband, came for the meeting.

Today Tolya again decided to moisten a towel with warm water from the distribution and heating unit to wipe down after exercise. I objected, since it’s the last unit; otherwise we’ll wreck it by soaking it, and there’s no spare.

The biologists came on comm. They say they’ve already received the biological experiment results from the crew and are thrilled. That’s gratifying.

We were told that the launch of the next cargo ship is being postponed to September 20. We have everything for now, so that’s fine — we’ll get more letters from family and friends.

Tolya is now photographing lightning flashes in shadow. We’re passing over China. I see a beautiful nighttime city, like a scattering of individual colored lights on a Christmas tree. On one orbit we had a very good pass along the eastern coast of Africa, south to north. A magnificent panorama — the smooth coastline of reddish-yellow sand, and an enormous plateau stretching to the horizon, ending at Cape Guardafui, then the Red Sea and the Arabian Peninsula.