Vostok 3 (1 results)

photographic portrait frontispiece, several photographic illustrations, first three chapters with numerous pencil annotations, pp. 228, 8vo, pale green boards, cover lettered in silver, with ascending red star motif, spine lettered in silver and red, dustjacket, clipped, worn at folds, frayed at edges, with short tears at upper edge of front and back covers, very good. The author's own copy, with his lengthy annotations and text corrections in pencil in the margins of 21 pages of the first three chapters. [With]: [in Russian] Cosmos: Road Without End. Moscow, 1974, photographic portrait frontispiece, numerous photographic plates, pp. 266, (vi), 8vo, dark blue boards, cover lettered in silver with ascending rocket motif, spangled star endpapers, very good Both books are signed by Nikolaev on the title-pages [in Russian] 'With Best Wishes, 15.9.97' and include an autograph signed note by the author, briefly reporting the book's contents, mounted on the final endpaper of each volume. The first book describes the training, flight and aftermath of the Vostok 3 mission of 1962, in which Nikolaev circled the earth 64 times in 96 hours and appeared on the first television broadcast from space. Besides the traditional images of free fall training and portraits in various types of space suit, Nikolaev is also pictured on a pedalo and with his wife, Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, on their wedding day. The second was written after the 1970 Soyuz 9 mission in which, though he was suffering from a pike bite from a fishing expedition two days before lift-off, Nikolaev set a new endurance record, 18 days in space. Known by Gargarin as 'the most unflappable man in a crisis I know' and by Titov as 'a man of iron endurance and courageous determination', Nikolaev was inundated with Soviet honours and had a conspicuous lunar crater named after him.