Half a year in orbit. Honestly, I can’t believe we’ve been flying this long and held out.

Got up early. Productively observed the Altai and Kazakhstan. Wrote up the results of the astrophysical experiments and started repairing the video recorder again. Finally managed to fix it. Today we watched all the cassettes we have on board. We’ve been starved for television; it’s tough up here without it.

We drank juice to celebrate the anniversary. Tolya gave a toast: “God grant that the rest fly six months just as we did.”

Toward evening there was a meeting with our families. Lyusya was subdued, but then she warmed up. Clearly there are some problems down on Earth.

Flying over America, I see the El Chichon volcano still smoking — its plume stretches about 300 kilometers out over the ocean.