THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 27, 1996 TAG: 9609270510
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 78 lines
The man who replaced astronaut Shannon Lucid aboard the Mir space station carried a Granby High School T-shirt and ball cap along for his four-month stay aboard the Russian research craft.
John E. Blaha, Granby Class of '60 and a veteran of four space shuttle flights, filled the seat left vacant when Lucid headed home after a record-setting six months in orbit, the longest space flight ever by any woman, or any American. Lucid returned to Earth on Thursday aboard the shuttle Atlantis, and Blaha has been on the Mir for a week.
Blaha, a Texas native whose military-family wanderings led him to graduate from high school in Norfolk, has maintained ties to the school through the years, visiting on occasion to talk to students about his space ventures. The school keeps a picture of him on display in a hallway, Principal Michael Caprio said.
Granby students stayed in touch with Blaha through computer e-mail messages as he prepared for the flight, Caprio said. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has promised to do a live video hookup between the Norfolk school and the Russian space station later this fall.
``We're just waiting for NASA to tell us when,'' Caprio said. ``Our students have been communicating back and forth with him, and he has been very supportive of keeping in touch as an alumnus.''
The students are hoping Blaha will wear the T-shirt and cap they sent him for the video conference, he said.
Blaha, 54, has been an astronaut for 16 years. He is a retired Air Force colonel who earned scores of commendations through his career, including two Distinguished Flying Crosses. He flew 361 combat missions over Vietnam in the late 1960s. He graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1965 and earned a master's degree in astronautical engineering from Purdue University in 1966.
Blaha served as pilot for two missions aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1989 and was commander of missions aboard Atlantis in 1991 and Columbia in 1993. He logged 33 days in space on those four missions.
His stay aboard Mir is scheduled for four months - although, as Lucid learned when technical troubles delayed her return for seven weeks, space-travel schedules can be unpredictable.
Lucid, who is a longtime friend and colleague of Blaha's, has been helping to prep him for the trip. She counseled him on how to deal with the boredom and routine of extended space travel.
``She has said, `John, patience is something you need to think about,' '' Blaha told the Orlando Sentinel in a pre-flight interview. ``She knows I'm not as patient as she is. She used to say that to me a lot in the last six years.
``What I have heard from the Mir crews that I have trained with,'' he said, ``is that your greatest challenge on a long-duration flight is psychological.''
To help counter that, he packed 37 videotapes for the trip, including seven Clint Eastwood films, seven Star Trek epics and a meditation tape designed for him by a Russian doctor. The latter, he said, is for a problem he had in getting enough sleep on previous space flights.
The Russians, he said, also encouraged him to spend a lot of time out of doors before his trip. ``They said, `Enjoy the green trees. Enjoy the wind. Enjoy the sun and enjoy the rain because after three or four months you wish you can see that.' ''
Blaha is one of just five Americans trained for long-term duty aboard Mir, which has been in space since 1986. He will be the third American astronaut to do a tour of duty there. His training was conducted in the United States and at the cosmonaut training center at Star City, Russia. He learned the Russian language for the flight.
NASA will make communications between Blaha and his friends and family on Earth more of a priority over the next four months, as Lucid and Dr. Norman Thagard, the first American to serve aboard Mir, spoke of the cultural isolation on the craft. Much of the communication is conducted in Russian, and even the cuisine has a Slavic tilt.
Thagard had a particularly difficult time adapting, and lost weight during his 115-day stay in 1995. Lucid supplemented the Russian diet with Twinkies and M&Ms that were dropped off by Russian flight crews. For Blaha's flight, NASA paid particular attention to the food he took along. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
John E. Blaha, an alumnus of the Norfolk High's Class of 1960, is a
space shuttle veteran. He is expected to be aboard Mir for four
months. by CNB