the Book of the Year 2009 competition in the Horizons category. The book was republished in 2017 by Novy Druk Publishing House. Interesting Facts About preparation for space flights Skydiving is considered as a kind of simulator – a means of psychological training of astronauts. Leonid Kadenyuk says "Frankly speaking, I never had a passionate love for jumping. I made them because it was required." About the spacecraft "Columbia" Construction of "Columbia" began in 1975. During its existence, "Columbia" has made 28 flights: The first flight took place on 12 April 1981; The 24th flight took place with the participation of Leonid Kadenyuk on 19 November 1997; The 28th flight was the last – a crash during the return to Earth, the destruction of the shuttle and the death of the crew – on 1 February 2003. Flight with Columbia The space shuttle was launched on 19 November 1997 from the space center. John F. Kennedy, Florida. In the laboratory module "Spacelab" scientific experiments in the fields of astrobiology, physics and materials science were carried out, astronauts were also scheduled to go into outer space. During his flight with shuttle Columbia, he performed biological experiments of a joint Ukrainian-American scientific study with three species of plants: turnip, soybean and moss. The main purpose of the experiments was to study the effect of weightlessness on the photosynthetic apparatus of plants, on fertilization and embryo development, on gene expression in soybean and turnip tissues, on the content of phytohormones in turnip plants, on hydrocarbon metabolism and ultrastructure of soybean sprout cells. pathogenic fungus late blight. In addition to these experiments in space flight, experiments were performed by the Institute of Systems Human Research on the topic "Man and the state of weightlessness." Interestingly, on 27 November, the 9th day of the flight, the first connection with Ukraine was scheduled. For the first time from space, a citizen of Ukraine had a dialogue with his country. From the astronaut's memoirs: "7 days before the launch, a special regime was introduced for our crew in order to prevent infectious diseases – quarantine. It excludes the possibility of astronauts in public places and any outside contacts. We were also isolated from families. At the same time, the astronauts are not only under the close supervision of doctors, but also under the supervision of psychologists." Leonid Kostyantynovych recalls: "Every free minute I and my colleagues used