Polyakov, Valery Vladimirovich

(born April 27, 1942, Tula, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Russian cosmonaut. He studied medicine in Moscow and in 1971 worked at the Institute of Biomedical Problems, the U.S.S.R's leading space medicine institution. The next year, he was selected as a cosmonaut. He made two long-duration flights to the Mir space station (1988–89; 1994–95). The second was the longest continuous stay in space, 438 days, from Jan. 8, 1994, to March 22, 1995.

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