Astronaut Describes Life Aboard Mir After Collision

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, he said.

In his first news conference since returning to Earth early this month, Foale described his Russian crew mates as misunderstood heroes and 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 the pressurized Mir and cutting power by half. It was the worst space wreck ever.

Foale said Tsibliyev simply did not have enough navigation information at his disposal.