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Cosmonaut: Mir crash could have been deadly
Next crew confident their space station visit will be safe
July 30, 1997
Web posted at: 4:37 p.m. EDT (2037 GMT)In this story:
SPACE CENTER, Houston (CNN) -- The Mir cosmonaut who was controlling a cargo ship when it collided with the space station last month said Wednesday the damage could have proved deadly for all on board had he not steered the cargo craft the way he did.
Mir commander Vasily Tsibliyev was guiding the craft by remote control when it crashed into the Russian station on June 25, rupturing one of six modules and causing Mir to lose half its power.
"Until the very end, I was holding the handles to try to get the craft not to hit the station," Tsibliyev said through a translator. "If it hit us directly, it would have punctured the core module directly and we would all have died."
There has been speculation that either pilot error or an overloaded craft that wouldn't respond properly caused the accident.
"I was attempting to brake it and cause the craft to go by. If I had not been doing that, I'm sure that it would've hit the station directly," Tsibliyev said. "And if it had done so, we would've either died or been just metal floating in space."
Commander: No one individual at fault
To figure out what went wrong, the commander said, data must be analyzed on the ground.
"We're going to have to take a look at the system as a whole," Tsibliyev said, indicating he felt that no single individual was at fault.
During the same news conference, U.S. astronaut Michael Foale said he thought that with a collision impending, he and his two Russian crewmates would have to abandon Mir.
"When we thought there was a collision imminent, the thought in our minds was we are going to have to bail out," Foale said in his first news conference with U.S. reporters since the crash.
Foale said the danger didn't scare him at first, but that "afterwards -- days later, upon reflection -- I got a little frightened about it all."
Nevertheless, despite a recent rash of accidents, Foale said the crew's morale is good. "We never really got depressed or demoralized by this," he said. "We just worked through these problems.
"What we're learning in terms of operations, how to work together, is just absolutely priceless," Foale said.
Upbeat replacements
During a separate news conference on Wednesday, the next U.S. astronaut to fly on Mir said she trusts the incoming Russian mission commander to ensure a safe flight.
"I have the opportunity to fly with the most experienced commander that the Russian Space Agency has -- Anatoly Solovyov," Wendy Lawrence said at Star City, Russia's training center for cosmonauts.
"I'm very confident in his ability to solve any problem that may occur during our flight."
Lawrence is set to board Mir in mid-September and would be the sixth U.S. astronaut on the station. But NASA will evaluate Mir's safety before making a final decision on her flight.
The next Russian crew, Solovyov and Pavel Vinogradov, blasts off for Mir on August 5. They are to carry out key repairs to restore the station to near full power before Lawrence arrives.
"We are not worried; it's normal routine work," said Vinogradov. As flight engineer, Vinogradov will lead efforts to restore lost power to the 11-year-old station and then patch the ruptured Spektr module, where most of Foale's science experiments were stored.
Lawrence, a U.S. Navy commander, is not expected to perform repair work, but she told reporters she was ready to lend a hand.
Tsibliyev and fellow Russian cosmonaut Alexander Lazutkin both came aboard Mir on February 12. They are scheduled to return to Earth on August 14.
Correspondent Miles O'Brien and Reuters Limited contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Mir crew prepares to return to Earth - July 22, 1997
- New crew to carry out Mir repairs - July 21, 1997
- Mir commander to undergo heart tests - July 20, 1997
- Fresh crew may step in for Mir spacewalk - July 18, 1997
- Mir loses all power after accident - July 17, 1997
- Life in space not so bad, says U.S. astronaut aboard Mir - February 10, 1997
Related sites:
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- American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology
- Russian Space Science Internet
- Russian Space Research Insstitute (IKI)
- NASA Shuttle-Mir Web
- Keith's MIR Page
- ISS Phase I - Space Station Mir
- Russian Space Agency
- MIR Space Station - Maximov Online
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