MOSCOW, March 24 Soviet cosmonaut Alexander Alexandrov told in an interview how he lost his pliers during his first spacewalk due to pressure drop.
«My position was at the exit hatch, the commander worked on the console. I had to turn the steering wheel and open the hatch, it opened inward. I remember how I opened the hatch, the pressure was 2-3 millimeters. A little, but still, and dust , and even some kind of tool — pliers, they took it and flew out. I opened the hatch, there was a black sky in front of me, an abyss in general — this, of course, is a feeling, «said Aleksandrov.
He recalled that while working in open space in 1983, together with his partner Vladimir Lyakhov, he installed additional solar panels at the Salyut-7 station, since the existing batteries stopped providing the necessary energy. “That’s what we did. We did everything quickly, we didn’t think to sit there for a long time just like that. But when there was a shadow, we had a rest, we “lay”, we talked like on the beach, romance,” the astronaut described his work. The exit lasted about three hours, which Alexandrov called «nonsense» compared to how much the cosmonauts now work outside the station.
Initially, it was not planned that Alexandrov and Lyakhov would conduct any spacewalks at all. The next crew was supposed to install additional batteries, but their rocket caught fire at the start, and the emergency rescue system carried the ship one and a half kilometers from the start. The expedition of Lyakhov and Alexandrov was then extended.