Nation IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Atlantis, Mir Crews Say Teary Goodbyes
With bear hugs and teary eyes, space shuttle Atlantis’ astronauts said goodbye to the crew of Russia’s space station Mir and then flew away, leaving Shannon Lucid behind for a five-month stay in orbit. Atlantis’ crew unlatched the shuttle from Mir after five days of docked flight about 250 miles above Earth. The shuttle is scheduled to return on Saturday. NASA cut short the shuttle’s mission by one day because of bad weather in the forecast at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and a leak in one of the steering systems used for descent.
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