SPACE CHESS

"On 9 June 1970, an unprecedented event occurred in the history of chess. The spaceship Soyuz-9 made a turn in space around the Earth. In the cabin, among the many things and instruments needed in spaceflight, there were also chess pieces. However, the chessboard was special: the pieces moved along special grooves, not separating from the board. This space chess was specially designed to play in zero gravity.

That day of the long-flight programme had been set aside for rest. On the 140th spin of the ship his crew - pilots-cosmonauts A. Nikolaev and V. Sevastianov - received an offer from Earth to play chess. The first-ever chess game Cosmos-Earth began. For the Space were both members of the crew, for Earth - General N. Kamanin and cosmonaut pilot V. Gorbatko.

The game lasted about six hours with short breaks when the ship was out of radio visibility of the Mission Control Centre. Of course, the aim of the chess game was not to pass the time, as, say, in a long-distance train carriage. Chess brought astronauts closer to the earth, to their native environment.”

This is an extract from the book "Journey to the Chess Kingdom" by Yury Averbakh and Mikhail Belin.

Today is exactly 51 years since that day. I modelled that space chessboard from the photo references.

By the way, the game ended in a draw.