Mission to Mir Page #3

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To cushion the blow, they fire

retro-rockets two seconds before they hit.

The searing heat of re-entry has scorched

the outer walls of the capsule.

Inside it, Anatoly and Nik wait for help.

You have to move slowly.

You have to try not to be very active.

You have to willingly

take the help of others.

You should not try to be heroic...

because you are not used

to sudden gravity.

Anatoly's wife, Natalya,

and the boys wait for him at Star City.

Of course, you think about this moment

many, many times.

You think about

how you're going to meet...

how you're going to see each other.

I think this is difficult to express in words.

While these space travelers

have returned to their families...

others have taken their place.

As the crews have come and gone...

MIR has blossomed from a tiny outpost...

to a palace in space.

It looks sort of like a porcupine...

and you wonder what all these quills

sticking all over it might be.

Well, these are the solar arrays.

This is what provides power

to the station.

Every time anybody enters MIR

for the first time...

it really is an eye-opener

as to the lack of storage space...

and how much equipment

has accumulated up there over the years.

Imagine living in the house

that you now live in...

and you haven't thrown anything away

for over 10 years...

and then you bring in some new things.

Where are you going to put it?

With large pieces of equipment

and supplies to move...

finding your way in the maze isn't easy.

When you come into the node here...

you had to have an idea

which way you were going ahead of time...

or you could sure get turned around

as to where to go next.

Every day I would either be

on the treadmill or the ergometer.

And this was important

because we needed to make sure...

that we had a body worth coming back

to when we returned to Earth.

I lost one of my shoes

and I still needed to exercise...

so I tried exercising barefooted...

which really hurt the bottom of my feet,

running on the treadmill.

So, I offered a prize.

I said, "The person that finds my shoe...

"we will give them

an individual bag of Jell-O.

"They can have the whole bag,

all to themselves. "

That sparked a lot of interest.

After a few days,

they took up the panels on the floor...

and that's where my shoe had floated to.

The modules aren't all oriented the same.

So, you'd go from one module

into another one...

and you would be upside down

in relation to where the ceiling was...

and you'd have to reorient yourself.

The Priroda Module

is the latest addition to MIR.

It's loaded with scientific experiments

from the U.S., Europe and Russia.

The research done here today is vital...

for the planning of

the future International Space Station.

From each experiment, we learn more

about the space environment...

and how to survive

outside the shelter of Earth.

There's no water, there's no soil.

The station depends absolutely on

the resupply for its being, for everything.

There's no means of cultivating anything.

We took wheat seeds

and they started to grow.

And just before I left MIR,

the wheat seeds had formed baby seeds.

What we need to get to,

if we're ever going to go to other planets...

is the ability to grow and regenerate

in the spacecraft itself.

On this flight,

we got to see a lot more of the Earth...

than I'd ever got to see on a short flight.

When I first got up there,

a lot of the lakes were frozen...

and then over the next few weeks

you could see the ice break up.

You could see all these big land masses...

you could see them sort of green up

as crops started to grow.

I really enjoyed that.

Norm had said that it was very important

that a person have something...

that they enjoy doing in their free time.

To make the place look homey...

I took food containers

and I put them up with bungee cords...

and I put my books there.

It just made me feel nice...

like I was at home.

On the first Progress that came up, my

daughter had put a sci-fi book on there.

I really enjoyed it and I read the first book.

Then, all of a sudden, it came to an end

and the conclusion was in Part 2.

Part 2 was not there.

She had not put it in.

That was the first time that I realized,

you know, a feeling of isolation.

Then, some unexpected news from Earth.

NASA has detected a problem

with the space shuttle rocket boosters.

They were used to lift Columbia

into orbit two weeks ago.

That could mean

astronaut Shannon Lucid will be staying...

on the Russian space station MIR

longer than planned.

Atlantis is scheduled

to pick her up from MIR...

but NASA says

the glue problem may mean...

Astronaut Shannon Lucid

is temporarily stuck.

If there was a problem on MIR, where

you had to do an immediate evacuation...

the Soyuz is always there.

That's your lifeboat to get back to Earth.

No American has ever attempted

a Russian style "hard landing."

I thought about it, and actually I talked

with Yuri and Yuri about it a little bit.

I always think it's good to talk

about the possibilities that could happen.

Sometimes it is a hard landing...

but the Russians have done it

for many, many years...

so I was confident

things would be all right.

My daughter sent a message up to me.'

"Don't worry,

Dad's taking care of everything.

"He was doing the laundry last night

and he put Windex in instead of Clorox. "

So, it's the little daily things

that really keep you in contact...

with the people that you love.

It's eight long weeks

before Atlantis is cleared for launch.

Commander Bill Readdy and his crew

are ready to go.

The actual night of the launch,

when you go to the pad...

the vehicle is alive,

and the wind is blowing...

and you hear the hissing and clanking...

and the only people that are there

are the folks that strap you in.

The flight that will bring Shannon home

is now under way.

As you get closer and closer

in the rendezvous...

you need to focus on the task at hand...

which is actually to resupply the MIR

with food and clothing...

and water, and even air.

And of course,

there's Shannon that's waiting for us.

Atlantis Houston...

we have a vision of loveliness

coming down in the TV view here.

And finally you get to the moment

where you're in the docking system...

Iooking through a small window,

you can see the faces on the other side...

and you can just feel the anticipation.

But at the moment the hatch opened,

there was just almost pandemonium.

I mean, there was such joy and everything.

It was just a fantastic moment.

I got lots of reports that they laughed

more when Shannon was on board.

The first thing I saw

when Shannon was back on 79...

was that the crew around her

was laughing.

When I called them, the first thing I heard

was Shannon laughing.

So, I think her attitude is infectious...

and I think that her attitude

is one reason this mission went so well.

Now John Blaha will carry on

the work begun by Norm Thagard...

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