_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [116]
The Russians, after losing the moon race, used their workable rockets to build their own versions. They launched a series of Salyut laboratories with two and three cosmonaut crews staying in space for months at a time. It was from this experience that Russia sent a larger and, to many space engineers’ way of thinking, the first real space station into orbit. It was called Mir, and cosmonauts stayed aboard their home in the sky for up to a year.
Spurred by Russia’s success, the United States signed an agreement with Japan, Canada, and the member nations of the European Space Agency to jointly develop an international orbiting complex. The United States would maintain the leadership role and provide the major elements of the future space city, with the Europeans and Japanese building research modules and Canada developing a mobile service center, a maintenance depot, and a large robotic arm.
By having to compete with the financial weight of America’s Strategic Defense Initiative (called “Star Wars” by some), the Soviet Union broke apart and ceased to exist. Officials of the cash-strapped Russian Republic began vigorous international marketing of the still-to-be-built larger station called Mir 2. The most interested party was the United States. Meanwhile the International Space Station survived by only one vote in Congress. This spurred NASA to negotiate a deal making the former Soviet Union the newest partner in the international dream.
With Russia adding its Mir 2 sections and rockets and Soyuz spacecraft to the program, the International Space Station grew by a fourth; its crew would now increase from four to six. The addition of the Russians reduced America’s overall costs, and both houses of Congress smiled as the first of a series of international cooperative missions got underway. Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev boarded a Space Shuttle and became the first of many cosmonauts who would ride into orbit on America’s Space Transportation System.
Cosmonaut Vladimir Titov was aboard the shuttle Discovery when it flew to within thirty-seven feet of Russia’s Mir and began “station keeping,” a technique where each spacecraft orbits side by side with another, separated by a small distance. It was the first meeting of American and Russian spaceships in orbit since the Apollo-Soyuz linkup in July 1975, and it was a rehearsal for a series of Space Shuttle and Mir dockings.
From February 1994 to June 1998, NASA racked up eleven flights to the large orbiting complex. Seven American astronauts spent a total of 977 days, 2.7 years, in residence aboard Russia’s Mir. It was on-the-job-training for the time when the International Space Station would become reality—not only for Russia and America but for thirteen other partners in the international project as well.
Between March 22 and August 26, 1996, Dr. Shannon Lucid began America’s continuous presence on Mir. The veteran astronaut set an American single spaceflight record with her 188-day stay, and those who followed enjoyed uneventful visits until astronaut Jerry Linenger arrived for his residency. The good doctor became the first American to take a spacewalk outside of the Russian outpost, but he also became the first astronaut to fight fire in orbit. At 10:35 P.M. Moscow time, February 23, 1997, cosmonaut Sasha Lazutkin activated a backup oxygen canister. It was needed because the station was supporting an overlapping six-person crew. Soon after the canister was activated, the master alarm erupted, and Linenger’s eyes went wide. A four-foot flame shot across the Kvant 1 research module.
Astronaut Alan Shepard (left), America’s first man in space, and astronaut Robert “Hoot” Gibson (center), the commander of the hundredth American mission, recognize NBC correspondent