Word: mir
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When astronaut Michael Foale joined two cosmonauts aboard the Russian space station Mir in May, he expected to spend most of his time carrying out scientific experiments. It hasn't quite worked out that way. On June 25 an out-of-control supply ship slammed into Mir, knocking out power, ruining many of Foale's experiments and making the three spacefarers scramble to perform emergency repairs. Then, early last week, Russian commander Vasily Tsibliyev announced he was having heart problems. He couldn't perform the more extensive repairs the ship needed, and if NASA was willing, the Russian space agency...
...stiff upper lip. Even as colleagues on the ground rehearsed procedures that cosmonauts Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin must undertake to fix their troubled station, Russian commentators candidly admitted that the damaged part of the station could be a Pandora's box. Rammed by another Progress on June 25, Mir's Spektr science module suffered a foot-long tear in one of its sail-like solar panels and an inch-wide breach in its hull, depressurizing the interior. To keep the rest of Mir's precious atmosphere from spilling as well, the crew hurriedly sealed off Spektr, site of Foale...
...other will enter with a flashlight to look for the right wires, moving gingerly in the tight quarters to avoid ripping his bulky space suit. Then they will reseal Spektr with a new hatch fitted with cable ports on either side to complete the electrical circuits to Mir. Foale, meanwhile, will be waiting in a Soyuz capsule, ready for the team's escape if an emergency occurs...
Although Russian officials are confident their ingenuity will pay off, Spektr still won't be ready for the kind of zero-G science that astronauts have been doing aboard Mir in exchange for U.S. payments of $472 million to the cash-strapped Russian space agency. That will require an "external" space walk to plug Spektr's puncture. Nor will the pressure ease on Goldin, who is already being urged by Capitol Hill to call off further visits to Mir by Americans. Joining these voices last week was Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, also the beneficiary of a celebrated space rescue...
MOSCOW: France has decided it cannot allow a French astronaut to travel to Mir until the fresh team of cosmonauts launching August 5 can repair the station. The new team will conduct an exterior space walk to pinpoint the location of a hole in Spektr's wall, pierced after a cargo ship collided with it in June, and will work to reattach cables disconnected after the June crash. U.S. astronaut Michael Foale will not participate in either operation, but instead has been instructed to camp inside the Soyuz escape capsule until a space shuttle mission picks him up in September...