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Space Shuttle Discovery clears the launch tower as it blasts off from pad 39-A on Tuesday, June 2, 1998, at Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Discovery will dock with Russian space station Mir during its mission.AP Photo/Peter Cosgrove

Discovery soars on NASA's last voyage to Mir

Web posted June 3, 1998

 Shuttle crew
  Space officials say Mir steady again

Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Space shuttle Discovery thundered into orbit Tuesday on NASA's last voyage to Mir, a flight to bring home the seventh and final American to stay aboard the Russian space station.

The shuttle and its crew of six took off right on time and soared through a sweltering early-evening sky.

It was one of the hottest shuttle launches ever. In the final minutes of the countdown, the temperature still hovered at 95 degrees, prompting NASA to keep close watch on the hydraulic systems at the pad, especially the movable walkway. The limit for launching is 99 degrees.

Commander Charles Precourt couldn't resist shouting out in Russian seconds after the booster rockets lit: ``Poyekhali,'' which means ``Off we go.''

About 250 miles above Earth, Mir's automatic thrusters were firing on cue, keeping the station on an unswerving course. The cosmonauts fixed the steering system Monday, three days after it shut down. Without automatic steering, Mir would have been too shaky for a shuttle docking.

Discovery is scheduled to reach Mir on Thursday and bring NASA astronaut Andrew Thomas back to Earth on June 12 after his four-month station stay.

From then on, NASA will concentrate on the international space station; construction will begin in orbit at the end of the year.

The Russians plan to continue flying aboard Mir through 1999, after which they will let it burn up in the atmosphere. Then they, too, will focus all their efforts on the new joint space station.

Mir's three-man crew was reportedly asleep when Discovery blasted off; the space station was flying over Ireland 5,500 miles away on its 70,183rd swing around the world. Earlier in the day, Thomas informed flight controllers he'd like some lasagna and Oreo ice cream waiting for him when he gets back.

``Have a smooth ride up the hill and bring Andy back to us,'' a launch controller told the shuttle crew moments before liftoff.

The countdown was tenser than usual, not just because of the on-then-off anxiety over Mir but because of the new lightweight fuel tank bolted to Discovery during liftoff. The tank, never before tested in flight, is 7,500 pounds lighter when empty than the 65,500-pound previous models so that NASA can haul heavier cargo once space station construction begins. NASA said early indications show the tank worked well.

This will be NASA's ninth and final linkup with Mir. As usual, the shuttle will transport a few thousand pounds of water, food and other supplies to the Russians, and bring back U.S. experiments.

This time, all of NASA's science gear will return aboard Discovery, leaving no room to bring home personal belongings left behind by Thomas' six predecessors. Shannon Lucid, for instance, had so many books delivered to Mir during her record six-month stay in 1996 that she installed a bookcase.

Russia will miss having Americans aboard Mir, said Gen. Yuri Glazkov, deputy commander of the cosmonaut training center near Moscow. The first astronaut, Norman Thagard, arrived in 1995.

``This is sad,'' Glazkov said. ``This is similar to being able to bring up a child and see your child going away for future life.''

Perhaps more than anything, the three-year exchange program taught NASA that long-duration space travel is harder than thought, said shuttle-Mir director Frank Culbertson.

``We had Skylab back in the '70s. We had people on orbit for up to about 84 days. But we did not have a continuous presence with handovers and the constant routine, the constant attention,'' Culbertson said.

Discovery's crew includes Valery Ryumin, a Russian former cosmonaut in charge of the Mir-shuttle program. He will inspect Mir during the four days that the space station and the shuttle will be linked in orbit.

Shuttle crew

Three space station pros are headed to Mir, along with a six-time shuttle flier and two rookies. A brief look at each:

Commander Charles Precourt will float into Mir for the third time, more times than most Russian cosmonauts have visited.

He expects this trip, NASA's last, to be bittersweet.

``It will be sad, especially when we close the hatch,'' he says. ``It will simultaneously be somewhat of a happy moment, because we will see a successful conclusion to a very challenging program.''

Precourt, 42, an Air Force colonel who speaks three languages, took part in the first shuttle-Mir linkup in 1995. He returned to Mir last year after directing NASA operations at the cosmonaut training center near Moscow.

He's from Hudson, Mass.

-- -- --

Pilot Dominic Gorie laughs when asked if he's sad this is NASA's last trip to Mir.

``I have to say adamantly no. I can't find anything maudlin or sad about my first spaceflight at all,'' says Gorie, 41, a Navy commander who grew up in Miami. ``I'm just going to be excited about every second, I think.''

Gorie was a child when his father, an Air Force pilot, died in a plane crash. That didn't stop him from wanting to fly planes and, eventually, spaceships. He entered the Naval Academy and went on to test pilot school.

A veteran of Operation Desert Storm, he had just been asked to command an F-18 squadron when NASA called in 1994 and offered him a shuttle piloting spot. He immediately joined NASA.

-- -- --

With liftoff, Franklin Chang-Diaz has rocketed into an elite fraternity: astronauts who have flown in space six times. He's only the third to do so.

``It seems like I just started working here, but time has passed very fast since I came here in 1980, and somehow the whole idea of just accumulating flights is not really what I was interested in,'' says Chang-Diaz, 48. ``I'm interested in just being there, exploring more.''

The Costa Rican-born physicist directs the advanced space propulsion lab at Johnson Space Center. His goal is to develop a rocket that could take astronauts to Mars and back within months, not years.

On this mission, he'll lug cargo between Discovery and Mir and, as payload commander, manage an antimatter-seeking spectrometer being tested for the first time in space.

-- -- --

Wendy Lawrence is making her second trip to Mir in less than a year. It's her payoff for getting pulled from a long space station flight because of her diminutive size.

``That is every astronaut's dream, to have an opportunity to walk off one flight and start training for the next,'' she says.

Lawrence, 38, a Navy commander and helicopter pilot, was supposed to spend four months on Mir last year. But she was replaced by a bigger astronaut; NASA decided it needed someone who could fit into a Russian spacesuit.

This is the third shuttle trip for the Jacksonville, Fla.-born Lawrence. She'll serve as flight engineer and oversee the transfer of supplies between Discovery and Mir.

-- -- --

Janet Kavandi is fulfilling a lifelong dream by flying in space. But she can't help having some second thoughts.

``The logical part of you goes, OK, I need to take care of all these issues just in case. Make sure your will is all organized and the children are taken care of,'' says the mother of two. ``But on your emotional side ... you always kind of wonder if you have the right to do this.''

Kavandi, 38, a chemist from Carthage, Mo., worked as an engineer for Boeing for 10 years before being chosen as an astronaut in 1994. On her first spaceflight, she'll try to pinpoint leaks in Mir's ruptured lab module by photographing a florescent gas as it seeps out into space, and monitor science experiments in the shuttle's mini-lab.

-- -- --

After decades of being a space station boss, ex-cosmonaut Valery Ryumin says he doesn't mind taking orders.

``I'm very calm with the prospect of not being the boss here because as every boss knows, every boss is also a subordinate with the possible exception of God himself,'' he says.

Ryumin, 58, directs Russia's Mir-shuttle program. He asked to fly on NASA's last trip to Mir so he could inspect the aging space station. He lost 55 pounds to fit in a spacesuit.

After flying three times to the Soviet Salyut 6 space station in the late 1970s and 1980 -- but docking only twice -- Ryumin served as a flight director for Salyut 7 and Mir.