170 days of flight. Hard to believe we’ve been up here that long. Our regular program is complete. Tomorrow would have been the descent, but there’s no feeling of regret — only satisfaction that we’ll get to extend the road in space by another two months and walk on virgin ground. That’s a great thing — to press forward. Feeling good. I think we’ll hold out.

During lunch I watched the ocean, the Galapagos Islands, Cuba, Jamaica. How strongly the sensation of color contrasts depends on the Sun’s position above the horizon.

During the day we requested dynamics for an experiment with EFO. Permission was granted. We worked in the predicted-orientation mode from Delta, with the station flying sideways, rotating around its longitudinal axis as if rolling along the Earth with an angular rate equal to the orbital revolution, which held the horizon stationary in the porthole’s field of view. On the evening terminator we took shots of the star Gemma in the constellation Corona Borealis, Vega in Lyra, and Deneb in Cygnus. Not bad.

At that time our families were at Mission Control, having come for a visit, but we couldn’t even talk to them — instead they got to listen in on us working. Then we talked with them for two sessions. Boris came from Grozny. Boris Matveyevich Zubarev, First Deputy Minister of Geology of the USSR, came on and said that based on our data, a gas deposit had been discovered in the Caspian region, a mineral district on the BAM route, and several more confirmations. I’m glad we’re earning our keep up here.

Lyusya said that Yevgeny Mikhailovich had called and asked her to pass along his greetings. Vitalik recited a poem in English. A giant!