Dedkov Credit - www.spacefacts.de

Personal: Male. Born in Luchin, Gomel, Belarus. Soviet Air Force Graduated from Higher Air Force School in Tshuguyev, Kharkov Oblast, 1966. Graduated from Gagarin-Air Force Academy, 1976, pilot. Soviet Air Force. Colonel, Soviet Air Force

Astronaut Career

Astronaut Group: Air Force Group 5 - 1970. Inactive Entered space service: 27 April 1970. Left space service: 20 April 1983. Trained as commander for mission to Salyut 6 1975-1977.

Worked in Kaliningrad. From October 1994 instructor at the Cosmonaut Training Center and from 1995, electrical engineer there.

24 March 1970 - Only nine of 16 cosmonaut-finalists cleared by the KGB and Communist Party. Kamanin reports that only nine of 16 cosmonaut-candidates that completed the arduous selection process have been cleared by the KGB and Communist Party for actual acceptance for cosmonaut training. He feels this makes the whole time-consuming selection process a waste of time. The VVS is reluctant to submit officers as cosmonaut candidates, fearing that if they fail the vestibular table tests they will not only be rejected as cosmonauts, but be unable to return to flight duty with the Air Force. The result is a final selection of dullards, who are not intellectual, or literary, or sports enthusiasts, who are poor readers and not really interested in spaceflight or cosmonautics. The final decree has been issued reorganising TsUKOS as GUKOS.