Happy birthday, cosmonaut Valentin Lebedev!

Valentin Lebedev, born April 14, 1942 in Moscow, Russia, went into space twice.

His first flight was aboard Soyuz 13 in December 1973 as flight engineer.  The flight lasted almost 8 days.

His second flight was aboard Soyuz T-5 as flight engineer to Salyut 7 in August 1982.  He stayed aboard until December, when he returned to Earth aboard Soyuz T-7.  

Happy birthday, cosmonaut Pyotr Klimuk!

Pyotr Ilyich Klimuk, born July 10, 1942, is a veteran of three Soyuz space flights and the first Belarusian travel in space.

His first flight was aboard Soyuz 13 as commander in December 1973.  It was the Soviet Union's first mission dedicated to science mission.

His second flight was as Commander on Soyuz 18 to the space station Salyut 4 May-June 1975.  The environmental conditions on Salyut 4 began to deteriorate and Klimuk was only able to take a 10-minute walk two days after he landed.  It took him a full week before he completely recovered.

Klimuk's third and final fight was commander of Soyuz 30 June-July 1978 to Salyut 6.

Soyuz 13 launched 1973

Soyuz 13, launched December 18, 1973, was modified to carry the Orion 2 Space Observatory, becoming the first manned space observatory and the Soviet Union's first mission dedicated to science.  Soyuz 13's crew consisted of Commander  Pyotr Klimuk and Flight Engineering Valentin Lebedev, both rookies.

They observed spectral lines of aluminum and titanium in the spectrogram of a planetary nebula.  They also studied Comet Kohoutek.

Klimuk and Lebedev returned to Earth December 26.