When cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov stepped out of his Soyuz capsule in March 1995 after 437 consecutive days aboard Mir, doctors recorded him at several centimetres above his pre-flight height, and his spine had become so unaccustomed to gravity that the recovery team carried him to a chair rather than risk the compression of letting him walk. (opens in new tab)

When cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov climbed out of his Soyuz capsule on the Kazakh steppe in March 1995, after more than a year aboard the Mir space station, he did something the recovery crew did not expect. He refused to be carried. Returning crews are almost always lifted out of the capsule and lowered into reclining […]