Georgy Grechko

He resigned from the space programme in 1992 to lecture on atmospheric physics at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Grechko has written his memoirs as "Космонавт No. 34: От лучины до пришельцев," (Cosmonaut No. 34 From Splinter to Aliens) Olma Media Grupp, Moscow, 2013.

Grechko, along with Alexei Leonov, Vitaly Sevastyanov, and Rusty Schweickart established the Association of Space Explorers in 1984. Membership is open to all people who have flown in outer space.

Grechko had a brief cameo role in Richard Viktorov's 1981 film Per Aspera Ad Astra, and as a result attained pop culture status in his home city of Leningrad. He also appeared in the 1979 film Under the Constellation Gemini.

Grechko made the first spacewalk in an Orlan space suit on 20 December 1977 during the Salyut 6 EO-1 mission.

In December 1977, Georgy Grechko returned to space with Yuri Romanenko during the Soyuz 26-Salyut 6 mission. The crew boarded the Soviet Salyut 6 Space Station, where they would stay long enough to eclipse the 84-day record set in 1974 by US Skylab astronauts Gerald Carr, William Pogue, and Edward Gibson. In January 1978, Grechko and Romanenko were joined by fellow cosmonauts Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Oleg Makarov, who linked their Soyuz 27 craft with the Salyut 6 Space Station and spent five days aboard the station along with Grechko and Romanenko, before returning to earth in Soyuz 26 craft. This event marked the first double docking and first double crew occupancy of a space station. On March 4, Grechko and Romanenko were joined by a different Soviet crew, consisting of Aleksei Gubarev (Grechko’s partner from his previous mission) and Czechoslavakian Vladimir Raemk, the first non-Russian cosmonaut.

Georgy Grechko’s first mission to space began during the winter of 1974, when he and fellow Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Gubarev were crewmen of the Soyuz 17-Salyut 4 mission. The Soyuz 17 rocket launched on 26 December 1974 and successfully docked with the Salyut 4 Space Station on 12 January 1975. This successful docking marked only the second complete success in five Soyuz-Salyut undertakings. The cosmonauts spent the remainder of their mission aboard the three room, 20 ton station. During their time aboard the Salyut 4 Space Station, Grechko and Gubarev conducted a wide range of studies that included infrared temperature scans of earth’s upper atmosphere, stellar observations and X-ray studies of the sun. In order to maintain fitness in weightlessness, Grechko spent up to two hours a day exercising on a bicycle and treadmill, as well as experimenting with wearing negative pressure suits. Grechko and Gubarev spent a total of 30 days in orbit, which set the Soviet record at the time, before returning safely on 9 February 1975.

Georgy Mikhaylovich Grechko (Russian: Георгий Михайлович Гречко; 25 May 1931 – 8 April 2017) was a Soviet cosmonaut. He flew to space on three missions, each bound for rendezvous with a different Salyut space station. Soyuz 17 was the first crewed vehicle to visit Salyut 4, Soyuz 26 was the first crewed vehicle to visit Salyut 6, and Soyuz T-14 visited Salyut 7. During the latter mission, Grechko helped to relieve the crew of Soyuz T-13, who had repaired damage to the station.