After flight, Marina Vasilevskaya to be engaged in public activities and share her experience with Belarusians

A solemn meeting with the participants of the 21st visiting expedition, which included the first female cosmonaut of sovereign Belarus Marina Vasilevskaya and a native of Belarus, crew commander Oleg Novitsky, has taken place today in the Zvyozdny Gorodok (Star City). Chatting to journalists, Marina Vasilevskaya noted that she plans to continue to engage in public activities and share her experience with our people and state organisations.

“I guess it will be great if we inspire youngsters to do something cosmic, something scientific,” Ms. Vasilevskaya noted, adding that some of the information she will share with Belarusians concerns the experiments conducted.

“All the experiments were very intense and responsible. I treated each of them very scrupulously. Watching our planet and photographing it was the most interesting for me. The results relating to the lactoferin experiment also arrived on Earth; I’m very pleased that I did everything right. Next is the work of scientists, I think they will soon tell us about the final stages of the experiment. We also photographed our native Belarus. We failed to take photos of Minsk, as it was cloudy, but we definitely ‘captured’ the Belovezhskaya Pushcha.”

Marina Vasilevskaya also talked about how she feels in a new environment – popularity, “I feel absolutely calm. I really like what is happening, because people are sincere and are happy for us. This brings more and more energy, encouraging us to share and discover the vastness of space even more, to tell something new and to discuss. Our recovery is still ongoing. Of course, everything turned out to be non-standard. But that’s all right. My homeland, the Belarusian people, and President Aleksandr Lukashenko are all very supportive.”

Being asked the main question whether she will fly into space again, the Hero of Belarus replied, “If the Motherland says it is necessary, we’ll definitely fly.”