We’ve passed the 3,000th orbit — the counter reads 3496, which includes the orbits the station made in unmanned mode. We’re passing near the eastern part of America. I turned on the receiver and hear fine, calm jazz music. It’s being relayed to us from the tracking ship Yuri Gagarin, which on this orbit is working with us autonomously, when there’s no communication with TsUP through it. And at that moment I felt keenly that we were passing above our ship, on which our people, just like us, are on a long space watch, only on Earth. And I imagined how they’re waiting for us, aiming the horns of their antennas, swiveling them in the direction where we’re supposed to rise above the horizon as an artificial star, and having found us, they track us across the sky from horizon to horizon. They monitor the condition of our onboard systems, ready at any moment to come to our aid. And while waiting for our questions, trying not to distract us from work, they try to do something pleasant — sending music into the airwaves, so that we, passing far from our native Earth, don’t feel lonely. We thanked them and say: “You’ll be heading home soon too — you must be homesick, right?” “Of course,” they answer.

V.V. Lebedev with his son Vitaliy before departure for the cosmodrome (1982).

This time the cargo ship came mostly loaded with fuel — that’s already for the next expedition. I say: “It’s bad being alone on the road, whether on Earth or in space. You won’t meet anyone, and there’s no one to refuel from.” We ask Lyonya Gorshkov: “Are we running on 76-octane or 93?” “On diesel,” he answers, “it won’t work for you.” “Can we buy some from you?” we ask. Someone chimes in: “It’ll cost you — your travel allowance won’t cover it.” Oh, if only there were gas stations in space! But there will be. We had a laugh, and that’s something.

I looked at the science equipment bay — hanging on it are 8 transparent bags full of bolts, nuts, and plugs. All of it from our long habitation of the station. But now things are easy. The station works for us, not the other way around.

In the morning we did descent training; I liked it, it’s useful. One manual descent control mode went flawlessly; on the second we got confused. Then we practiced the automatic descent mode with navigation support.

In the Malakhit unit, where our garden grows, the cucumbers have sprouted a 6th leaf at the top, and they’re 50 mm tall.