MOSCOW, April 12. /TASS/. Russia is not losing the space race to the United States in fundamental science, Roscosmos Cosmonaut Team Commander Oleg Kononenko said in an interview with the Pozner program on TV Channel One on Monday.
"Honestly speaking, no. Perhaps, we are lagging behind in some areas but, generally, no from the viewpoint of fundamental science and fundamental engineering," he said, replying to a question by TV host Vladimir Pozner about whether Russia was lagging behind in the space race.
Roscosmos cosmonauts are carrying out a series of substantial fundamental researchers in the Russian segment of the International Space Station, he stressed.
"In my latest flight, I carried out the experiment Argonaut and I printed living tissues on the 3D bio-printer. That is, I obtained these tissue engineering constructs, using the principle of magnetic bio-levitation. This was a bat thyroid and human cartilage, as far as I remember. This was done for the first time in the world. In this area, Russia has established an indisputable priority," the cosmonaut said.
The cosmonaut recalled that during his third spaceflight, he carried out a joint Russian-German experiment. "I exercised control of a ground-based robot. I stayed aboard the station that was flying at the first cosmic velocity while one robot was in Munich and the other in St. Petersburg," Kononenko said.
On April 12, the world celebrates Cosmonautics Day. This year, 2021, marks 60 years since Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s historic spaceflight. Gagarin who was the first man in space circled the Earth once in his Vostok 1 spacecraft and returned safely, landing in the southeastern part of European Russia.