The record for the longest single spaceflight, 437 days, belongs to the physician Valeri Polyakov.
He spent over 14 months on Mir to test whether humans could survive a trip to Mars, and on landing said: 'We can fly to Mars.'
More amazing facts
- 1991 The world's first webcam watched a coffee pot. In 1991 Cambridge University computer scientists pointed a camera at their coffee machine so colleagues would not make a wasted trip to an empty pot.
- 1991 A single eruption cooled the whole planet.
- 1991 · 1992 Sergei Krikalev left Earth from the USSR and came back to Russia.
- 1992 The first text message ever sent was a Christmas greeting.
- 1992 Nollywood began with a videotape trader.
- 1996 Dolly the sheep was named after Dolly Parton.