Turning the pages back... December 5, 1997 (11/29/98)

Turning the pages back...

December 5, 1997

A year ago on December 5, Col. Leonid Kadenyuk re-entered Earth's atmosphere and entered the history books as independent Ukraine's first space-faring cosmonaut. He had served as payload specialist aboard the U.S. space shuttle Columbia that lifted off on November 19 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., and returned on December 5. While in space he conducted the Collaborative Ukraine Experiment, which studied the effects of microgravity on plant growth.

His journey was both the fulfillment of a personal dream - he had yearned to be an astronaut since he was a boy - and a symbol of the expanding strategic partnership between the U.S. and Ukraine. It was the result of a pact signed in November of 1994 by Presidents Bill Clinton and Leonid Kuchma during the latter's visit to the U.S.

The launch was witnessed by millions around the world (we don't know how many Ukrainians watched ...), and some special guests at the Cape, among them President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine and nine top students of Ukraine's top high schools in Ukraine - the best of the best - who were chosen to travel to the U.S. as guests of NASA.

Col. Kadenyuk, who was chosen to participate in the shuttle flight by the National Space Agency of Ukraine, took several noteworthy items with him into space: a Ukrainian flag; a portrait of Ukraine's greatest poet, Taras Shevchenko, and a copy of his "Kobzar"; and recordings of Ukrainian songs sung by famous Ukrainian artists such as Anatolii Solovianenko, Dmytro Hnatiuk, Sofia Rotaru and others; as well as a recording of the Ukrainian national anthem, "Shche Ne Vmerla Ukraina."

Col. Kadenyuk's back-up for the shuttle flight, fellow cosmonaut Dr. Yaroslav Pustovyi, said that "Ukraine and the cosmos have always been connected." He listed three Ukrainians who made immeasurable contributions to space exploration: Mykola Kybalchych (1853-1881), an inventor, foresaw space flight and developed the idea of jet propulsion; Yurii Kondratiuk (1897-1941/1942), a scientist and inventor, was a pioneer in rocketry and space technology who came up with the concept of multi-stage rockets; Serhii Korolov (1907-1966), an aeronautical engineer, designed the first Soviet guided missiles and spacecraft.

Dr. Pustovyi also noted that Pavlo Popovych, a Ukrainian, became the USSR's fourth cosmonaut in 1962. Thus, it can be said that Ukraine always was a space-faring country and the shuttle flight by Col. Kadenyuk, he added, represents "Ukraine's return to the cosmos."

Source: "Ukrainian cosmonaut flies aboard U.S. shuttle," "Ukraine's junior scientists attend launch" by Roman Woronowycz, Kyiv Press Bureau, November 23, 1997 (Vol. LXV, No. 47); "Leonid Kadenyuk and Ukraine's students become a part of history" by Oleh Bula, November 30, 1997 (Vol. LXV, No. 48); "Ukrainian cosmonaut completes mission" by Philip Chien, December 14, 1997 (Vol. LXV, No. 50); "Ukrainian cosmonauts address community gathering in Newark" by Roma Hadzewycz, February 22, 1998, (Vol. LXVI, No. 8), The Ukrainian Weekly.

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