Slept well. Woke around six, at seven we got up since dynamics started and we needed to build orientation for geophysical experiments. After building orbital orientation and switching to “Kaskad” for automatic maintenance, we worked four orbits, doing a lot of photography with MKF-6M, the black-and-white KATE-140 camera, and spectral equipment.

We worked mainly over USSR territory. I saw much of interest in the Far East. Near Lake Khasan I saw an old volcano with a small lake of dark blue water in its crater. Similar sky-blue lakes exist in South America on volcanoes near Lake Titicaca. Many faults and ring structures are visible in the Altai. Its relief, in the depth and density of its convolutions, resembles a human brain — you can always tell Altai from any other mountain region in the world. I made out the summit of Mount Belukha, the highest peak there at 4,500 meters, covered in perpetual snow with a small glacier, and nearby found tiny Lake Rakhmany, where I’d vacationed with Lyusya and Vitalik, admiring the incomparable lush scenery, savoring the honey-scented air from the flowering meadow grasses, and bathing in hot radon springs.

In the evening, this radiogram came:

“‘Elbruses,’ tomorrow on orbit 2345 you will be consulted about the possibility of extending work to December. The reason is an expanded experiment program, mainly astrophysical and new ones based on additional requests from scientists, and establishing a flight duration record. Based on your conversation, this question will or will not be put forward for specialist discussion. Please consult with each other and prepare for the discussion. Your opinion is decisive. If you consider it inadvisable, the flight will not be extended.”

We talked it over with Tolya and decided to continue, but asked that a second EVA be included for practicing the solar array extension methodology, and we also decided to request more autonomy in daily planning and experiment execution. I don’t know if I’ll ever fly again, and I’d like this flight to remain a milestone in cosmonautics.