Jerry was sitting down for breakfast one morning when he was astonished to see in the paper an announcment of his own death.
He called his friend at once, "Jim, have you seen the announcement of my death in the paper?"
Jim replied, "Yes, and exactly where are you calling from?"
Valeri Vladimirovich PolyakovBorn 27 Apr 1942.Russian cosmonaut and doctor who established the record for the longest continuous stay in space of 438 days (8 Jan 1994 - 22 Mar 1995) aboard Russia's Mir Space Station. With a prior stay of 241 days on Mir (29 Aug 1988 - 27 Apr 1989), he also then held the cumulative space endurance record of 679 days. He left space service on 1 Jun 1995. His education included astronautics medicine. On 22 Mar 1972 he was selected as a biomedical specialist cosmonaut for a planned space station mission and began training in Oct 1972. The cumulative space stay record was subsequently broken by Sergei Avdeyev on 13 Aug 1999 (3 missions, total 748 days) and then on 16 Aug 2005 by Sergei Krikalev (6 missions, total 803 days). |
