A few days later, Bykovsky attended a lecture on the Soviet Air Force Club which inspired him to pursue his dream of becoming a pilot.

During his military service, Bykovsky logged over 5,000 hours of flying time on various types of aircraft, including jet fighters and bombers.

In the 1950s, he participated in the testing of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 jet fighter, which was the first Soviet production aircraft capable of supersonic flight.

[1] Although an exceptional pilot in his own right Bykovsky was not part of the original "Vanguard Six" assigned to the Vostok mission, however, due to a back injury sustained by Valentin Varlamov, Bykovksy was added to the group.

[6] Bykovsky set a space endurance record of five days in orbit[7] where his call-sign was "Hawk" (Russian: Ястреб).

During the Soyuz 1 flight, many concurrent problems forced mission control to command an early reentry of the spacecraft.

[14] He flew the Soyuz 31 mission to the Salyut 6 space station with the East German Sigmund Jähn.

Bykovsky and Jähn undocked from the station in the Soyuz 29 capsule on 3 September and landed back on Earth later that day.

[18] Valery Bykovsky established the Russian Federation of Cosmonautics (RFC) in 1998 with the objective of advancing the development of space exploration and science in Russia.

[19] Bykovsky was a keen sportsman: Service in the Air Force made us strong, both physically and morally.

Gherman Titov was a gymnastics enthusiast, Andriyan Nikolayev liked skiing, Pavel Popovich went in for weight lifting.

[3] His extensive body of work, characterized by a predominantly figurative style, has been widely showcased in renowned galleries and museums throughout Russia.

Additionally, he had an abiding passion for photography and had taken numerous photographs during his space missions, using both conventional and digital cameras to capture stunning images of the Earth's surface and the celestial bodies.