Astronaut Tells of Mir Crash Aftermath

Astronaut Michael Foale spent much of his Mir mission trying to console his distressed Russian commander and reassure him that the nearly catastrophic collision wasn’t all his fault and that being banned from spacewalking wasn’t so awful. In his first news conference since returning to Earth early this month, Foale told reporters at Kennedy Space Center, Fla. that his Russian crew mates are misunderstood heroes. He recalled his attempts to cheer up commander Vasily Tsibliyev, who assumed--correctly--that some of his countrymen would blame him for the crash. Tsibliyev was guiding a cargo ship by remote control in a docking test when it slammed into the Russian space station on June 25, piercing the hull of Mir.