Section A · Page 7
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, August 25, 1999
Nation
Crew recalls troubled times on Mir
The Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — They endured a fire and crash, breakdowns and blackouts, sweltering heat and noxious fumes.
One came back noticeably thinner, another looking skeletal, because of rations on the space station Mir. And a third struggled with depression.
Once back on Earth, more than one vowed never to return and three promptly quit the astronaut corps.
Yet as Mir finally begins to wind down, its last long-duration crew due to leave Saturday and a fiery plunge planned for early next year, the seven Americans who lived on the Russian station to help NASA prepare for a new space station can't help but feel a little nostalgic.
Sure, they'll miss Mir, or at least miss knowing Mir's there.
“It’s sort of like if you’ve lived in a house and you’ve really enjoyed living in the house and maybe your kids have been born there,” says
David Wolf also will be sorry to see Mir go, even though he said it was time Russians focused their scarcity resources on the international space station, a work in progress 250 miles in the sky.
Lucid was the only American woman on Mir. Her craving for M&M's and potato chips and her delayed homecoming — she spent more than six extra weeks in orbit because of problems with her shuttle ride home — endeared her to everyone.
Lucid lived on Mir for six months in 1996 and, in doing so, set a space endurance record not only for Americans but also for women worldwide.
live. You may never go back, but you always know you could," said Wolf, who stayed on Mir from the end of September 1997 to January 1998.
"Mir has been a very historic part of space travel, and I think you'll feel a sense of loss when Mir comes down," Lucid said.
NASA astronaut Shannon Lucid. "But then there comes a point in time when you need them extra bedrooms, and you need to move."
"It's like maybe a place you used to
The first American on Mir, Norman Thagard, came across as a whinner after he arrived in March 1995. But the truth is, he sat on Mir almost two months with virtually nothing to do, waiting for his experiments to arrive on the Spektre module.
NASA had underestimated the psychological hardships of training for a year in Russia, conversing in Russian, then living with Russians on their space station.
Thagard returned from almost four months looking anemic and haggard. He'd lost muscle. By year's end, he'd resigned.
John Blaha, the only test pilot and nonscientist of the bunch, also suffered on Mir. He replaced Lucid and spent the first month of his four-month mission in a depression — he badly missed his wife of 30 years,
back home in Houston.
In the end, he said he enjoyed his time on the space station.
Next came Jerry Linenger, who battled two-foot flames from a burst oxygen generator in February 1997, then English-American Michael Faole, who four months later found himself trying to save the ruptured station following a near-catastrophic collision with a cargo ship.
Within months of returning to Earth, Blaha and Lineniger followed Thagard out the door.
Wolf relieved Foale in September 1997 after considerable debate about whether Mir was safe. Wolf spent most of his time doing maintenance and repairs on the insufferably hot space station. He returned 20 pounds lighter.
Australian-American Andrew Thomas closed out the shuttle-Mir collaboration in June 1998. In all, the American astronauts spent a total of 907 days on Mir.
Utah senators' comments anger NAACP
The Associated Press
SALTLAKECITY—Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Uttah, said he didn't mean to offend anyone when he predicted that George W. Bush would be the GOP presidential nominee unless an African-American woman came forward with an illegitimate child he had fathered.
"When I make a mistake, it's a beaut," Bennett said Monday after a private meeting with civil rights leaders. "There's no question this was a mistake. I had no intention of offending anyone."
Bennett said he was thinking of the movie Primary Colors and its portrayal of a fictional Southern governor's womanizing when he made the clumsy remark to the editorial board of The Standard-Examiner newspaper in Ogden, Utah, on Aug. 13.
"Unless George W. steps in front of a bus or some woman comes forward, let's say some
Black woman comes forward with an illegitimate child that he fathered within the last 18 months, or some other scenario that you could be equally creative in thinking of, George W. Bush will be the nominee." Bennett told the newspaper.
"It was simply a clinical description of the state of politics in America, but it was not received that way, and I should have been smart enough to realize it probably would not be received that way." Bennett said Monday.
Jeanetta Williams, president of the NAACP's Salt Lake City branch, said after meeting with Bennett that such an excuse wasn't good enough.
Leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also are upset with comments made by Utah's other Republican senator, Orrin Hatch.
"People of color can't do anything about their color," Hatch said recently. "But I do believe gay
people have a choice to live within the legal rules or not. It's up to them, they do have a choice, where an African American has no choice with regard to the color of their skin."
Williams and Edward L. Lewis, president of the NAACP's Utah, Idaho and Nevada branch, criticized Hatch for contrasting gays and African Americans in terms of civil rights.
"We do not equate being gay or being lesbian with 300 years of slavery and being Black in America," Lewis said. "It is not the same thing. However, we do feel that everyone should have their civil rights."
Hatch was hosting a golf tournament and was not immediately available for comment Monday. His spokeswoman, Heather Barney, said Hatch had done an a lot for the minorities' communities and had taken his responsibilities seriously in representing everyone in Utah.
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