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Michael Foale NASA-5 Michael Foale | Collision and Recovery | Foale Bio | Needed on Mir | Meanwhile | Collision and Recovery Mike Foale went to Mir full of enthusiasm in spite of the fire and other problems during the NASA-4 increment. He expected hard work, some discomfort, and many challenges; and he hoped to integrate himself fully into the Mir-23 crew. The challenges became enormous when a Progress resupply vehicle accidentally rammed the space station, breaching the Back to Spektr module and causing a dangerous depressurization. The NASA-5 Mir-23 crew worked quickly to save the station; and in the TOC troubled months that followed, Foale set an example of how to face the more dangerous possibilities of spaceflight. Meanwhile on the ground, NASA’s Mir operations were changing, too. In part because of the problems, Foale’s NASA-5 increment catalyzed a broader and deeper partnership with the Russian Space Agency. Mike Foale’s diverse cultural, educational, and family background helped him adapt to his life onboard Mir. Born in England in 1957 to a Royal Air Force pilot father and an American mother, his early childhood included living overseas on Royal Air Force bases. An English boarding school education taught him how to get along with strangers; and, as a youth, he wrote his own plan for the future of spaceflight. At Cambridge University, Foale earned a Bachelor of Arts in physics and a doctorate in astrophysics. But, in the midst of this progress, disaster struck. Foale was driving through Yugoslavia with his fiance and brother when an auto accident took their lives but spared his own. This experience undoubtedly taught Foale about life’s fragility and risks. Nevertheless, he continued an active and adventurous path, including diving to salvage antiquities in the Aegean Sea and the English Channel. After university, Foale moved to America to pursue a career in file:///C|/Users/huckabyp/Desktop/Sources%20compressed/Mir/NASA-5%20Michael%20Foale.htm[1/9/2015 1:16:05 PM] NASA-5 Michael Foale the United States space program. He was working as a Space Shuttle payload officer in 1988 when he was selected for astronaut training. He flew on STS-45 and STS-56, and then became involved with the Shuttle-Mir Program as a crewmember of the "near Mir" STS-63 mission in 1994. In October 1995, while in Star City working on spacewalk issues, Foale found himself unexpectedly tapped for the NASA-5 mission. The reason? Two previously scheduled astronauts—Scott Parazynski and Wendy Lawrence—did not fit new size restrictions for the Soyuz escape capsule’s seats. For a while, a modified "Three Bears" folktale circulated at NASA: "Scott is too tall; Wendy is too short; but Mike is just right." Within weeks, Foale moved to Star City with his wife, Rhonda, and their family so he could train for his mission on Mir. Like NASA-2 Mir Astronaut Shannon Lucid, Foale saw his training in science and his self-identity as a scientist as helpful preparation to becoming a long-duration astronaut. He also valued "the willingness to undergo something very different and foreign." He has said, "It was that trepidation—but interest nonetheless—to get through it. To go and do this strange thing. I think it comes out of a person, based on his background, culture, and family. I’m not sure it’s something we could train into a person." When Foale launched to Mir onboard Atlantis (STS-84) on May 15, 1997, the Shuttle-Mir Program was maturing. This mission marked docking number six, and Foale and three of his crewmates had prior experience flying a Space Shuttle to Mir. Commander Charlie Precourt had been the pilot of STS-71. Pilot Eileen Collins had been Foale’s crewmate on STS-63. Cosmonaut Elena Kondakova had experienced 169 days in space as a Mir-17 crewmember in 1994-95, including six days with NASA-1 Mir Astronaut Norm Thagard. The Mir complex had grown since any of them had seen it last. The Russian space station now included the new Priroda science module plus the new Russian-built and U.S.-delivered docking module. Foale has described his first view of Mir, back in 1995 with STS-63, as "like seeing the great wall of China from a distance. You don’t relate to it. You know you don’t have to live in there." For the STS-63 crew, it was somewhat like being a tourist on a bus tour. They could see Elena Kondakova, Aleksandr Viktorenko, and Valeri Polyakov waving, all excited. "We didn’t understand each other very well," Foale said, "but we had Vladimir Titov onboard, who could speak with them. We lingered there…. They invited us to tea." Of course, the first Shuttle-Mir docking and a real tea with the Russians wouldn’t take place for four more months, during STS-71. On STS-84 when Foale saw Mir for the second time, the space station—besides being bigger—looked in better condition than he had imagined. "I was expecting worse and saw something file:///C|/Users/huckabyp/Desktop/Sources%20compressed/Mir/NASA-5%20Michael%20Foale.htm[1/9/2015 1:16:05 PM] NASA-5 Michael Foale better," he said later. "I saw brighter, more cheerful objects." Mir was different than the "dull, cellar-like impression I’d had in my mind." When Foale floated into the Mir living area, the atmosphere he found there cheered him. "It was a warm, welcoming, cozy place" in spite of the masses of cables and equipment and wires. Happily for Foale, "It looked like a home." NASA-4 Mir Astronaut Jerry Linenger greeted Foale and provided him an accurate, personal picture of what to expect. He said it was not accidental that the Mir looked and even smelled better than the astronauts had expected. "Every free moment during the weeks prior to the arrival of the Shuttle was spent cleaning up," he added. Linenger personally showed Foale "how he would don the respirator, find his way into the Soyuz capsule, and activate the fire extinguisher." According to Foale, "Jerry and I talked for a long time, maybe a total of six hours or so over three or four days…. Jerry was being very careful to tell me, ‘Don’t be fooled by the illusion that this is all okay while the Shuttle’s here. It will change.’" Also greeting Foale were his new Russian crewmates, Commander and Mir veteran Vasily Tsibliev and first-timer Flight Engineer Aleksandr (Sasha) Lazutkin. The schedule called for Foale to help the two cosmonauts finish their Mir-23 mission, and then to serve on the first part of the Mir-24 expedition. "I certainly enjoy their company," Foale said of his new crewmates from orbit. "We spend every meal … chatting and talking." Right away, Foale acted to ensure that he fit in with the crew. First, he noticed that the crew spent a lot of time dealing with e- mails and instructions from the ground, so he wrote a computer program to automate that effort, thus saving them an hour of work a day. Second, he made sure he was present for every communications session, and he spent time with Tsibliev and Lazutkin. Foale said that it was easy to lose oneself in one’s work onboard Mir, and—oddly—to lose track of the others. "It’s not because the Mir is such a big space. It’s because it’s such a cluttered space. You could easily spend a day without talking to crewmembers." Foale’s easy familiarity with his crew, and with the Russian ground team, would serve him well later when times got tough. Foale’s crewmates opened up to him about the troubles during Linenger’s increment, including the fire. "Vasily talked about it quite a bit," Foale recalled. "Sasha [Lazutkin] … took me to where the fire occurred and showed me what he was doing and how the fire happened. He gave me a long hour’s description of everything that happened during the fire. It was very amusing. It file:///C|/Users/huckabyp/Desktop/Sources%20compressed/Mir/NASA-5%20Michael%20Foale.htm[1/9/2015 1:16:05 PM] NASA-5 Michael Foale was a good story with serious undertones. But, he wasn’t making a big deal out of this. He was telling me a story because I wanted to learn. And, other times, Vasily would talk about the near-miss of the Progress docking. That was a very close call." Foale settled into his work on Mir. He later said, "My whole frame of mind was, ‘This is not a Shuttle flight. This is long- duration. So, in the first two or three weeks, if I don’t get all these things done, it’s not a problem.’" He would give it what he called a "best-faith attempt … working seriously to do what I could" while building a good relationship with his Russian crewmates. "Sometimes in the afternoon Sasha Lazutkin would find me and say, ‘Mike, you want to drink tea?’ And, we’d drink tea. Then we’d go back to doing whatever we were doing. That was kind of the existence I had up to the collision." To create his own living space, Foale tied his sleeping bag in a corner of the Spektr module, which was new but not all that comfortable. Spektr’s sidewalls were skewed a disorienting 45 degrees off those of the Base Block and were crowded and noisy. "I feel like I’m living in a garage," Foale reported from orbit.
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