DOWN TO EARTH
Born in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the far east of Russia, Valery graduated from the Kaliningrad Mechanical Engineering College. His speciality was ‘cold working of metal’.
He went on to graduate from the Department of Electronics and Computing Technology of the Moscow Forestry Engineering, where his specialism was ‘spacecraft controlling systems’.
Valery also had a short spell in the Soviet army as a tank commander.
After that, he joined Energia, the USSR rocket space corporation. He had many different roles there and rose through the ranks. “I had to work my way from the low positions to the top.”
Valery became the General Designer for testing. He had enormous responsibility, designing the orbital systems for the Salyut space stations and the Soyuz flight modules. He was at the cutting edge of the Soviet space programme.
He was married to Natalya Ryumina and they had two children, Viktoria and Vadim.
Valery made the decision to transfer over to the Energia Cosmonaut Corps, and (after an extensive training programme) became an astronaut. He felt his knowledge and understanding would be beneficial in space.
After seeming to lead the Space Race in the early 1960s, it was perceived the USSR had slipped behind the Americans by the end of the decade.
Valery’s first trip to space was on Soyuz 25, which was launched to attach to the Salyut 6 space station. His partner was Vladimir Kovalyonok.
They were in space for 90 days, orbiting Salyut 6 many times. They were unable to dock with it (a ‘hard-dock’) despite lots of attempts and were eventually forced to return to earth as their power and fuel supplies began to run short.
Around the same time, Valery and Natalya were divorced. He remarried, to Yelena Kondakova, who was also a cosmonaut. They had one daughter named Yevgenia (although his other two children also lived with them).
Valery’s second and third trips into space were more successful than the first.
In 1979, partnering Vladimir Lyakov, Valery spent six months in space in the station Salyut 6 (journeying there on Soyuz 32). Although they were supposed to have been joined by other cosmonauts, they spent the time alone as the visiting crew also had a docking failure.
Eventually, an unmanned Soyuz was sent up into space to bring Ryumin and Lyakhov home.
In 1980, Valery returned to Salyut 6 in Soyuz 35, alongside co-pilot Leonid Popov.
Whilst in space, they carried out various experiments including hatching quail’s eggs, testing telescopes and checking how various metals behaved in space.
During this time, the 1980 Moscow Olympics took place. Ryumin and Popov were beamed live onto a big screen in the Moscow stadium – thus becoming the first people to appear at the Olympic Games who were not on this planet.
Whilst in space, they were joined by cosmonauts from Hungary, Vietnam and Cuba.
When Valery returned to earth after that mission, he had spent more hours in space than any other human being.
Thinking his flying days were over, Valery became Flight Director of the Salyut 7 and the MIR space stations.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Russians began working with the Americans in space. Valery became the Russian director of the NASA – MIR programme.

In 1998, Valery decided to go back into space, as part of the crew of the ‘STS-91 shuttle MIR docking programme’. This meant him flying on the American ‘Discovery’ craft at the age of 58, making him, the oldest person ever in space (at the time).
He said, “I thought it would be very useful for a person who has very good flight and life experience, to visit the MIR station – the station which was on orbit for more than 12 years. I believe that I will be able to see more details and more things, compared to young cosmonauts or crew members.”
On this mission, Valery did 154 orbits of the earth, covering 3.8 million miles in 235 hours and 54 seconds.
There were other astronauts on MIR from various countries. Valery eventually returned to earth alongside Australian Andrew Thomas.
It was the final stage of the joint American and Russian programme.
Reflecting on this experience, Valery said, “During these joint operations, we learned a lot. We learned how to understand each other. We got acquainted with the philosophies of each country and we met a lot of people. I believe it is a very important step for our next stage, which will be the ISS (International Space Station).”
However, Valery was not to be part of the next stage. He retired when he returned to earth.
In total, he had spent 371 days in space – slightly longer than one whole year.
Valery received many honours during his career, including the Order of Lenin (three times), the Hero of the Soviet Union (twice) and three Pilot-Cosmonaut of the Soviet Union awards. He was also honoured by the Cuban and Vietnamese governments.
In retirement, Valery pursued his hobbies of tennis, angling, hunting and walking through forests.
In 2017, there was a Russian film entitled ‘Soyuz 7’. Ryumin was played by actor Aleksandr Samoylenko, but for some reason they changed his name to Valery Shudin.
When Valery died, aged 82, he was buried in the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery.
Dmitri Rogozin, the Director of Roscosmos (the Russian Federal Space Corporation) said, “We have lost a comrade and a friend. The memory of him will forever remain in our hearts.”
RIP – Russia’s International Programmes