ASTRONAUT BEGINS 5-MONTH MIR STINT.Byline: Marcia Dunn Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. astronaut astronaut, crew member on a U.S. manned spaceflight mission; the Soviet term is cosmonaut. Candidates for manned spaceflight are carefully screened to meet the highest physical and mental standards, and they undergo rigorous training. Shannon Lucid Shannon Matilda Wells Lucid (born January 14, 1943) is an American astronaut who previously held the record for the longest duration stay in space by a woman. She has flown in space five times including a prolonged mission aboard the Mir space station. floated into Russia's space station Saturday night for a five-month stay and "great adventure," following a docking by shuttle Atlantis. Atlantis slowly and gracefully moved in and linked with the Mir station as the spacecraft soared 245 miles above Russia. Two hours later, the hatches were opened and the six shuttle astronauts and two station cosmonauts embraced and shook hands, laughing. "Everybody's real excited to be together here," said Atlantis' commander, Kevin Chilton. The top priority for the eight space explorers was moving Lucid and her personal gear from Atlantis into Mir. She is the first American First American may refer to:
"I think it'll be a great adventure," she said in a TV interview Saturday. "I'll be doing things that I haven't done before, staying a long time in space and seeing how I react when I spend a long time in space." It was NASA's third docking with the Russian station in less than a year. NASA's communication lines were quiet as Chilton guided Atlantis into Mir's docking port. Until then, there had been almost nonstop HP's brand name for its fault-tolerant servers, which range in size from four CPUs to 4,000 CPUs. The NonStop line was created by Tandem Computers, which was acquired by Compaq, which later became part of HP. chatter between the six shuttle astronauts and two station cosmonauts, in English and Russian. "Houston, I have contact and capture," Chilton reported. Lucid had been preparing for more than a year for her five-month stay on Mir, 10 times longer than her longest space stint to date, and four times longer than her four previous spaceflights combined. No other American has ever spent so much time in orbit; Dr. Norman Thagard Norman Earl Thagard (born July 3, 1943) is an American scientist and former NASA astronaut. He is the first American to ride to space on board a Russian vehicle. He did this on March 14, 1995 in the Soyuz TM-21 spacecraft for the Russian Mir-18 mission. spent nearly four months on Mir last year. NASA needs more long-duration space experience before it starts to build and staff an international space station in a few years. Lucid, 53, a biochemist and the first woman to fly in space five times, is to remain aboard Mir until August, when Atlantis will return with her replacement, NASA astronaut John Blaha. |
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