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- <text id=92TT0712>
- <title>
- Apr. 06, 1992: World Notes:Space
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Apr. 06, 1992 The Real Power of Vitamins
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 38
- World Notes
- SPACE
- Discovering a New World
- </hdr><body>
- <p> The plot of the story was familiar to any science-fiction
- fan. The crew of a rocket ship returns to earth after a long
- space voyage only to find everything changed. It was exactly that
- way for Sergei Krikalev. When he blasted off in May 1991, he was
- one of the proudest of elites, a Soviet cosmonaut. Last week,
- when he came back after 313 days in orbit, he found a different
- world.
- </p>
- <p> Krikalev landed on the snowy plains of Kazakhstan, an
- independent country. He was wearing the emblems of the U.S.S.R.,
- but it no longer exists. His hometown is called St. Petersburg
- again, not Leningrad. Understandably, Krikalev's knees were a
- bit rubbery. He was given a whiff of smelling salts and a cup
- of soup.
- </p>
- <p> He had followed events on the ground with interest, for
- politics kept him aloft. After the aborted coup in August, newly
- emergent Kazakhstan, where the launch facilities are located,
- demanded that a Kazakh cosmonaut be put into space. The mission
- directors complied last October but had to talk a less than
- thrilled Krikalev into staying in orbit an extra five months to
- help train the new crew.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-