Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 28, 1995 TAG: 9506290009
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH BORENSTEIN ORLANDO SENTINEL
DATELINE: CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
Like an anxious teen-ager, the space shuttle Atlantis roared off the ground Tuesday afternoon toward a date with the Russian space station Mir. And history.
Next comes the first kiss.
After years of preparation and four days of weather delays, Atlantis is heading to the first docking Thursday morning between a U.S. shuttle and a Russian space station.
First, Atlantis had to outrace storm clouds. Tuesday's bad weather came too late to prevent Atlantis' leap through the partly cloudy sky at 3:32 p.m.
The 100th U.S. human space launch was as successful as the first one 34 years ago. But that first launch was made in a space race between Russians and Americans, while Tuesday's shuttle carried astronauts from both countries.
``Very beautiful, well-done work, looks fine,'' said Alexey Bakhartchuk, a Russian space scientist witnessing his first shuttle launch.
Atlantis, with a seven-member Russian-American crew, will dock with Mir Thursday at 9:05 a.m. Then, for five days, the 105-ton shuttle, which has flown 33 million miles, will embrace the well-worn, 123-ton Mir that has traveled more than 1 billion miles.
This mission also sets the stage for work on an international space station to replace Mir, starting in 1997. Part of Atlantis' mission is to test the effects of months of space on the human body, especially on astronaut Norm Thagard, who has been aboard Mir since March.
But space officials had history, not science, on their minds.
``It is possible that our grandchildren will look back to this time and our work together and see it as a major milestone in history, not only of human spaceflight, but perhaps even the history of the world,'' said Tommy Holloway, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration manager in charge of this joint program.
Yuri Semenov, president of the RSC Energia, the Russian space company, had similar sentiments:
``Together, we can do much more than separately. And we hope that politicians will not interfere with our work.''
Atlantis first had to get off the ground without any problems. Thunderstorms delayed launches Friday and Saturday and then, on Tuesday morning, an oxygen leak in a fuel cell worried NASA until managers decided it was too small to affect the flight.
Atlantis also will be ferrying goods to Mir, including 264 pounds of Russian food and clothing and 374 pounds of fresh drinking water and fresh fuel cells. Atlantis will return to Kennedy Space Center July 7 with 880 pounds of Russian equipment and 440 pounds of NASA science samples from Thagard's experiments.
Atlantis lifted off with cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Nikolai Budarin and astronauts Robert ``Hoot'' Gibson, Charlie Precourt, Ellen Baker, Bonnie Dunbar and Greg Harbaugh - the most veteran shuttle crew to launch.
Budarin, the only rookie, and Solovyev will stay on Mir. Thagard and cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennady Strekalov will return on Atlantis.
The Russians and Americans docked in space before, with the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. But Gibson said there is more trust this time.
Now, the countries are going into space hand-in-hand - as if on a date.
by CNB