Shuttle-Mir Program

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Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to Mir

The Shuttle-Mir program was a collaborative space program involving Russia and the United States. It involved the American Space Shuttle visiting the Russian space station Mir. It was announced in 1993 with the first mission occurring in 1995. Despite safety concerns from the Americans, the program continued until its scheduled completion in 1998, and all NASA space shuttles except Columbia visited the station. The program was also an important precursor to the current International Space Station.

1 The Program
2 Books
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] The Program

In June 1992, U.S. president George H. W. Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed to join hands in space exploration: one U.S. astronaut would board Mir, two Russian cosmonauts would board a space shuttle. September 1993 U.S. Vice-president Al Gore and Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announced plans for a new space station, which would later be called the International Space Station, or ISS. They also agreed that, in preparation for this new project, the U.S. would be largely involved in the Mir project in the years ahead, under the name Phase One (the ISS being Phase Two). Space shuttles would take part in the transportation of supplies and people to and from Mir. U.S. astronauts would live on Mir for many months on end. Thus the U.S. could share and learn from the unique experience that Russia has with long duration space trips.

Starting March 1995 seven U.S. astronauts consecutively spent 28 months on Mir. During their stay the space station went through rough times and several emergencies occurred, notably a fire on February 23 1997, and a collision with a Progress unmanned cargo ship on June 25 of the same year. On both occasions complete evacuation of the Mir using a Soyuz spacecraft was avoided by a narrow margin. The second disaster left a hole in the Spektr module, which then was sealed off from the rest of the station. Several space walks were needed to restore full power to Mir, one of which was inside the Spektr module which had been emptied of air by the hole.

Cooperation between the U.S. and Russia proved far from easy. Distrust, lack of coordination, language problems, different views of each others' responsibilities and divergent interests caused many problems. After the disasters, the U.S. Congress and NASA considered whether the U.S. should abandon the program out of concern for astronauts' safety. NASA administrator Daniel S. Goldin decided to continue the program. In June 1998, the final U.S. Mir astronaut Andy Thomas left the station aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.

[edit] Books

The story of Phase One is described in great detail by Bryan Burrough in his book Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis Aboard Mir (1998). This was the first book released to describe the Shuttle-Mir Program and it did count on media 'sensationalism' for marketing. For instance, while the author interviewed many of the managers of the Shuttle-Mir Program Office, only 'sound bites' or pieces of events that could help sell the book were reported without the rest of the details that would have more realistically presented the events as they occurred at that time. Another book, "Off the Planet," was written by astronaut Jerry Linenger to describe his experiences on board Mir during a critical time. However, neither book accurately reports the events or decisions made within the Shuttle-Mir Program Office in response to the challenges generated on Mir, in Russia, at NASA Headquarters, or within the Shuttle Program.