Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency translation, dated 12 December 1990, reports a Moscow Television "Vremya" newscast from 6 December 1990 about a Mir news conference with the Soviet-Japanese spaceflight crew. Toyohiro Akiyama describes how hard his first days of weightlessness were, and says Earth looked afflicted by illness. Gennadiy Strekalov reports that he saw an object he first took for an unidentified flying object before deciding it was probably something like an aerostat casing.
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*** BEGIN MESSAGE SERIAL=PM1212103790 9 **** UDN=V(46468) CLASS=UNCLAS 30/WAVE UNCLAS 30/WAVE --- WARNING: THIS ITEM CORRESPONDS TO ITEM NO. 5. OF LD0612221390 (061800 PROGRAM SUMMARY) SERIAL: PM1212103790 PASS: ATTN TV CENTER/VIDEO NAVY COPY TO MOD COUNTRY: USSR SUBJ: MIR STATION NEWS CONFERENCE REPORTED SOURCE: MOSCOW TELEVISION SERVICE IN RUSSIAN 1800 GMT 6 DEC 90 TEXT: //((FROM THE "VREMYA" NEWSCAST: REPORT BY P. ORLOV, IDENTIFIED BY CAPTION)) ((TEXT)) ((ANNOUNCER)) A NEWS CONFERENCE INVOLVING THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE SOVIET-JAPANESE SPACEFLIGHT WAS HELD TODAY DURING A SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS SESSION. ((ORLOV)) RATHER THAN WITH QUESTIONS TO THE SOVIET-JAPANESE CREW, THE NEWS CONFERENCE OPENED IN RATHER UNORTHODOX FASHION, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF RYOKO KIKUCHI, THE BACKUP CREW, ON HOW SHE IS FEELING. YOU WILL REMEMBER THAT RYOKO HAD TO UNDERGO AN OPERATION AT BAYKONUR. HER ANSWER PLEASED EVERYONE. SHE IS FEELING FINE. THEN IT WAS TOYOHIRO AKIYAMA'S TURN TO REPLY. ABOUT THE FIRST DAYS OF WEIGHTLESSNESS. HE WAS FRANK. IT WAS VERY DIFFICULT. IT WAS MUCH EASIER FOR MUSA MANAROV, WHO IS IN SPACE FOR THE SECOND TIME, AND AFTER A YEAR-LONG FLIGHT THE ADAPTATION PROCEEDS 10 TIMES MORE QUICKLY, HE SAID. GENNADIY MIKHAYLOVICH STREKALOV DESCRIBED WHAT CRYSTALS HAD BEEN PRODUCED IN SPACE AND WHAT HAD BEEN DISPATCHED TO EARTH. HE THEN ADDED THAT HE HAD OBSERVED AN OBJECT WHICH HE AT FIRST TOOK TO BE AN UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT, UNTIL HE WORKED OUT THAT IT MUST BE SOMETHING LIKE A CASING FROM AN AEROSTAT. THESE ARE SOME OF THE DETAILS FROM TODAY'S NEWS CONFERENCE. THE WORK IN ORBIT IS SETTLING DOWN INTO A NORMAL ROUTINE. THE OLD CREW IS HANDING OVER TO THE NEW ONE, AND, MOST IMPORTANT, THE JOINT WORK OF THE SOVIET COSMONAUTS AND THE JAPANESE TELEVISION JOURNALIST HAS GOTTEN OFF TO A GOOD START. AND NOT JUST IN SPACE. ((UNIDENTIFIED VOICE IN RUSSIAN, VIDEO SHOWS JAPANESE JOURNALIST EXTENDING MICROPHONE)) A "JOINT FLIGHT" HAS ALSO TAKEN OFF ON EARTH. SOVIET JOURNALISTS ARE QUESTIONING OUR JAPANESE COSMONAUT, WHILE JAPANESE JOURNALISTS WANT TO TALK TO THE SOVIET CREW. ((UNIDENTIFIED RUSSIAN JOURNALIST)) I WOULD LIKE TO ASK YOU, YOU HAVE FINALLY SEEN YOUR COUNTRY -- JAPAN -- FROM ORBIT, COULD YOU SHARE YOUR NEW IMPRESSIONS WITH US? ((TOYOHIRO AKIYAMA, SEEN SPEAKING INTO A MICROPHONE, VOICE IN RUSSIAN)) WHILE YURIY GAGARIN FIRST DESCRIBED THE EARTH AS A "BEAUTIFUL PALE BLUE GLOBE," IT APPEARED TO ME TO BE AFFLICTED WITH SOME KIND OF ILLNESS AT THE MOMENT. THIS IS MY IMPRESSION FROM OBSERVING OUR EARTH. ((ORLOV)) THE JAPANESE TELEVISION JOURNALIST HAS SEEN THE FACE OF THE EARTH DISFIGURED BY HUMAN ACTIVITY. BUT THE NEWS CONFERENCE ALSO PRODUCED OTHER INFORMATION. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MANY YEARS UNCLAS 30/WAVE
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 2 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.