The story of the youngest member of the Voskhod crew begins with the story of his mother. Boris' mother was a cheerful energetic woman who was fond of saying "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again". She had a good command of German, French and English. She could draw, sing and play the piano and she liked mathematics. She died when Boris was 14 years old.

A woman of her intellect and charm could not fail to influence her son. From his mother Boris acquired a love of life and a wide range of interests.

He began by studying the exact sciences for a utilitarian purpose. His room was cluttered up with push buttons and levers. He could switch on the lights and the radio right from bed, the drawers of his desk opened and closed by themselves.

Boris wondered what else he could fix up to work mechanically. His friends said pressing buttons was a lazy man's job, His family complained about the junk he was piling up.

Because of the wires that curled around the legs of the chairs and wandered off to all the corners, because of the condensers, the radio tubes, the coils and other accessories of the radio devotee, it became increasingly difficult to move around in the room.

Boris was in the 10h form when he assembled an 8-valve television-set. There was a good, factory-made set in the living room but then it wasn't "his own".

Graduation was approaching. He had to decide to which college he would go. He asked his father. "Make up your own mind" was his father's comment. (Five years later when the question of the space flight came up he turned to his father again. "It's up to you to decide" his father said. It suited Boris all right.

His mother had been an oculist; his father was a surgeon. Perhaps, that is why Boris decided on a medical career.

The home made television set and with it all the radio tubes and capacitors were given away to a friend. Cybernetics and radio electronics were not for him any more.

But he was mistaken. In the very first year at college he became interested in physics. Together with the senior students he made new medical equipment. Physical methods of diagnostics radio, ultra-sound and the atom for the treatment of patients - all this exerted a powerful fascination on his questing mind.

During his college years, Boris lived like the other students of Moscow: he crammed before exams, he attended concerts at the conservatory, he went to exhibitions, hockey matches parties, he discussed books, life.

It was high time for him to decide in what field to specialise: clinical or instrumental medicine. He saw two roads before him but he followed a third.

He happened to read an item in a journal. It was about the psychology of high-altitude flights, overloads, weightlessness... Boris chose space medicine.

Yegorov graduated from the medical institute the same year that Gagarin circuited the earth. Yuri Gagarin was no stranger to Yegorov. In his sixth year at medical school he had also worked as laboratory assistant at a research institute. There he had seen Gagarin spin around in the centrifuge and break into a sweat in the heat chamber.

When the Vostok-1 circuited the Earth Yegorov was on duty in a plane keeping "his square" under observation.

The doctor and laboratory worker was well on his way to becoming a researcher.

When he learned that a doctor would be needed in space to observe the other members of the crew and study his own reactions, Boris Yegorov put aside his scientific thesis for a time and began to prepare for the flight.

The three of us were now spacemen. As commander, Komarov had a stiffer course. Some concessions were made in the case of Yegorov and Feoktistov but it wasn't easy either. At last the momentous day came, October 12 1964.