Word: nasa
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...superbly executed internal space walk, Mir's new commander, Anatoli Solovyev, and his flight engineer, Pavel Vinogradov, floated into the airless lab and installed a new cable system that will provide electricity to Spektr and the rest of the power-thirsty station. "This is a super day," exulted NASA astronaut Michael Foale, who waited out the space walk inside Mir's Soyuz re-entry vehicle, the crew's lifeboat in case they had to abandon ship. "Well done, everybody...
...healthier than it has been all summer. But because of the damage to Spektr's hull, the science module is still uninhabitable by Foale or other NASA astronauts, for whom it normally serves as living quarters and science workshop. Though the listing Mir has taken a big step toward righting itself, its problems in space and on Earth are far from over...
...call was to install a new hatch on Spektr--one equipped with a cable assembly that would let the crew tap electrical power from the lab's solar panels while keeping the module sealed off from the rest of the station. Before the walk got started, NASA's Greg Harbaugh, who helped plan the exercise, played down its difficulty, brushing off news reports calling it the most dangerous EVA ever. "I don't think they get much easier," he said...
...place, Solovyev joined Vinogradov inside the lab, and the crewmen began their next chore, looking for breaches in Spektr's skin caused by the collision. The cosmonauts had originally been ordered not to turn the place upside down hunting for holes but rather just to scan for what NASA called blue sky showing through the walls. With the work going so well, however, controllers approved a more thorough search, and Vinogradov and Solovyev went so far as to disassemble Foale's stationary bicycle in order to create maneuvering room. "Michael," Solovyev joshed, "your riding days are over." For all that...
...TIME science correspondent Dick Thompson explains: "With the help of SOHO, scientists may now have a handle on when and where solar storms will occur. The end result is that satellites, power stations and astronauts can be better warned and protected." Budget concerns, however, may force NASA to pull the plug on the satellite. Thompson says they couldn't have picked a worse time to flick the switch: The sun is about to go into solar maximum, its most violent period ? and the most scientifically useful...