Current Issues:
   SpaceViews
   SpaceViews Update

Breaking News
Back Issues
Search
Subscriptions
Submissions
Forum
Space Sites of the Week
Home

Mars Pathfinder
Comet Hale-Bopp
Top Ten Stories of '96
Life on Mars?

NASA Calls Mir Safe, Continues Missions

NASA Administrator Dan Goldin gave the go-ahead to continue an American presence on the Russian space station Mir September 25, despite Congressional calls to end the program because of the poor safety record of the station.
     "Only after carefully reviewing the facts... and measuring the weighty responsibility NASA bears for its astronauts, do I approve the next phase of the Shuttle-Mir program," Goldin said at a press conference a little more than 12 hours before the launch of the shuttle Atlantis on a Mir docking mission.
     "We move forward not only because it is safe, but for the important scientific and human experience we can gain only from Mir," Goldin said. "As we prepare for the June 1998 launch of the first element of the International Space Station, nothing can beat the hands-on, real-time training aboard Mir."
     Goldin based his decision on the conclusions of several reports which he reviewed the day before he announced his decision. The reports included independent analyses by former Gemini and Apollo astronaut Thomas Stafford and former aerospace executive A. Thomas Young, as well as two NASA internal studies.
     The decision came one week after the House Science Committee held a hearing to discuss the safety of the space station, which has suffered from a series of problems this year ranging from problems with oxygen generators to a flash fire and a collision in June with a Progress resupply spacecraft.
     The hearings included testimony by NASA Inspector General Roberta Gross, who testified about an interim report released earlier in September which appeared to show that the station was in much worse condition than either American or Russian officials had revealed.
     Gross's report mentioned problems with carbon dioxide levels noticed last year during Shannon Lucid's six-month stay on Mir, training deficiencies which left at least one astronaut feeling unqualified to fly the Soyuz spacecraft in an emergency, and miscellaneous other problems with the station.
     Although Gross's report was attacked by at least one member of the Science Committee, the report was well received by most of the committee, including chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI).
     Sensenbrenner expressed his disappointment in Goldin's decision, and said NASA was "acting negligently" be sending Wolf to Mir. "He [Wolf] is not only being put at unnecessary risk, but the benefits of Mr. Wolf's mission as a result of what has happened on Mir are so reduced that in my opinion the risks outweigh the benefits," he told CNN.
     "I still do not believe there are sufficient benefits to weigh even the smallest risks aboard Mir, and I am disappointed with his [Goldin's] decision to replace astronaut Michael Foale with David Wolf at the end of STS-86," said Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL), a member of the Science Committee.
     Goldin acknowledged in his press conference that many thought the joint program should end. "We are deeply touched by the outpouring of emotion," Goldin noted, but that the decision to continue the program "should not be based on emotion or politics."

Return to SpaceViews Mir Home Page