The Galveston Daily News from Galveston, Texas • Page 3

GALVESTON COUNTY, TEXAS SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1997 Till A3 Russian cosmonaut feigned ailments to test M.D.'s mettle The Associated Press SPACE CENTER, Houston Flight controllers blanched when the distress call came from Mir. Twelve months into his record- smashing mission, cosmonaut Valery Polyakov had an ear full of was. What should he do? Doctors at Russia's Mission Control outside Moscow hurled questions at Polyakov, who by then had spent more time in space than any other human. Specialists convened. Finally, advanced medical equipment was sent to Mir on the next supply ship.

Polyakoy Dr. Polyakov laughed as he recalled the commotion almost three years ago. Sipping coffee after an autumn lecture to 50 Houston-area space medicine specialists, including a couple of NASA astronauts, he said through a translator that the earwax was, basically, a joke. "I decided to amuse them, to provide them with something to do." It wasn't the first time during his months in space that Polyakov'had tested doctors on the ground. As deputy director of Russia's Institute for Biomedical Problems, he was their boss.

On occasion, he feigned illness to see whether they could provide prompt and proper medical support. And he didn't wait for the fancy gadgets on the supply ship to remove the wax. "The good thing is, now we realize that plugged ears may. develop in orbit," Polyakov said, "and now the medical kit, is equipped with a certain drug just to take care of 0 He adds with a grin, ft--never provoked them again." After a world-record 679 days in space 241 days on his first Mir mission and 438 days on his second, the longest by anyone the 55-year-old grandfather is as refreshingly playful and as big a tease as ever Here's how this self-described Man of the Heavens summed up bis space performance: "Once I tried to calculate the number of orbits I made during those two flights, but my calculator almost failed. Eventually, I had 10,864 orbits all in all, and I think you ran consider me an American because half of my time I spent watching the U.S." And his account of ongoing medical tests: "I keep asking my colleagues whether they have completed data processing (and tell them) you should be really very grateful to me because I have provided your employment for 10 years despite of that chaos which reigns in Russia." The cosmonaut-physician, who seemed fit and relaxed, said he is living proof humans could endure a flight to Mars, that their bones wouldn't become dangerously brittle, their muscles uselessly shriveled and their minds helplessly crazed.

That's why he volunteered for Mir, despite his wife's tears. He actually proposed living on the space station for up to 24 months, but his launch was delayed by rocket trouble and he had to settle for 437 days, 17 hours, or about 14M months. Polyakov was aloft from Jan. 8, 1994, until March 22, 1995 72 days longer than two Russians nearly a decade before him and 250 days longer than NASA's Shannon Lucid, who owns the world endurance record for women and the U.S. record for all astronauts.

"He was asked to do something that nobody had ever done before, and he just did it. He gutted it out," said David Leestma, director of NASA's -flight-crew operations and an ex-astronaut. fThatfs a real effort to Be away from everything. I mean, you really isolated. They talk about the French Foreign Legion.

Man, this is you're in the Sahara Desert and there's just no way around it." Polyakov's record likely will stand until someone travels to Mars. He returned from Mir in remarkably good health, taking 20 unassisted steps from his Soyuz capsule on the snowy steppes of Kazakstan. Nonetheless, future trips planned by Russia or NASA are to be kept in the six-month range. COLOR $59 12 COLOR CONTACT LENSES 12 Color Contacts J24 Color Contacts $79 Less Was. Beixrte $139 Mfg.

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