Key NASA Mission: Get Along in Space

They’ll probably get along, the two seasoned cosmonauts and the American commander scheduled to dock with the International Space Station early this morning. After all, project delays have given the crew nearly five years to chip away at the linguistic and cultural obstacles that could derail their extended mission.

But will other U.S./Russian crews do as well? And what of future polyglot crews that contain, for example, Japanese and Brazilian astronauts?

“Making it work is not a technical challenge,” said John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. “The real challenges are the international nature of the crews and the ground systems.”

At 1:24 a.m., the Russian Soyuz capsule was scheduled to dock with the space station about 220 miles above the Earth. In preparation, Russian ground controllers undocked a trash-filled Russian freight vehicle from the station by remote control and crashed it into the South Pacific near Fiji.

Aboard the capsule, cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko was to fire Soyuz engines and guide the capsule into a flyaround of the station in preparation for docking. “We’re having a pretty good day in orbit,” Bill Shepherd, the U.S. commander of the four-month mission to the station, said earlier.

So far, the current mission has gone smoothly. But if Americans learned anything from their sometimes prickly experience with Russia in joint missions on the shuttle and on space station Mir, it was that cooperation with a former Cold War enemy could be difficult.

Melding the goals, finances and egos of the 16 nations that are partners for the building and operating of the space station for the next 15 years could be harder still. There are sure to be new cultural issues in space that even seasoned NASA planners can’t predict.

An example? A Saudi prince who rode aboard shuttle Discovery in 1985 had no idea how to point toward Mecca from space and was uncertain how often he should pray, with the sun rising and setting every 45 minutes. (After consulting religious authorities, Mission Control decided pointing toward Earth and praying at sunrise and sunset Houston time was fine.)

Tensions could increase for future crews of seven astronauts from various nations. “When you get more people up there, coalitions can form,” said Harvey Wichman, director of the Claremont McKenna College Aerospace Psychology Laboratory. “That can be deadly.”

In an early sign that compromise might be the order of the day on the space station, English will not be the official station language as planned--at least not right away.

At two prelaunch news conferences held in Russia, English words were rare--even from Shepherd, who is fluent in Russian. The “Expedition One” crew, he said, will speak “Runglish,” a blend of Russian and English.

“We certainly want to migrate toward an all-English operation,” Jeff Hanley, lead flight director for the mission, said from Houston. But until Russian flight controllers become proficient in English, he said, “that’s not practical.”

For this crew, language probably will not be a barrier. “We don’t even need to talk to each other sometimes,” Gidzenko said. “We take a look at each other and we have got it. We talk with our eyes.”

Sergei Krikalev, a telegenic cosmonaut who lived in Houston and flew aboard the first U.S.-Russian joint shuttle mission in 1994, called his trip to the station a “logical extension” of cooperation between the two nations. “I think we can fly even further together,” he added.

While some Russian cosmonauts had grumbled at the prospect of being placed under an American commander, this team said the nationality of the commander was irrelevant. “I think a good leader sometimes has to be a good follower,” said Shepherd, a former Navy SEAL.

Shepherd made good on his promise, following the Russian custom in preflight rituals established by pioneer Yuri Gagarin, the first man to enter space in 1961: The trio watched the beloved Russian film “White Sun of the Desert” before the flight and, shortly before entering the Soyuz, urinated on the tire of the vehicle ferrying them to the rocket.

In the Mir program, difficulties arose when the two powerful space agencies--each with its own entrenched culture--clashed over how to proceed. In space, it was cosmonauts fuming at an astronaut who wouldn’t pitch in to repair the cooling system. On the ground, it was Houston battling with Moscow for control of astronauts’ schedules.

NASA, according to space analysts, is much more control oriented than its Russian counterpart. The agency likes to run missions from the ground and schedule nearly every minute of an astronaut’s time. Russians give more control to commanders and allow them to make more decisions on the fly.

“The real test will come when something goes wrong and there’s a debate over what to do,” Logsdon said.

Hanley, the flight director, said ground crews had spent much time practicing conflict resolution and communication skills. “That doesn’t mean we’re not going to have rough spots,” he said. “We’ll work through those as we have in the past.”

Russian cosmonauts are also much more emotional than American fliers, who like to set their emotions aside, said Ken Bowersox, a U.S. astronaut who is the expedition’s backup commander. “Nobody can prepare you for how it feels,” he said.

Tensions persist because many Russians feel their major contribution to living in space--the successful long-term tenure of Mir--has been overlooked by NASA officials eager to justify the $60-billion cost of the station by emphasizing its historical importance.

“We’re calling this the first permanent human presence in space,” said Logsdon, the space policy expert. NASA is ignoring Mir, he added, “because it wasn’t us.”

The sensitivity of many Russians is heightened because their beloved Mir is expected to crash back to Earth next year. “It is clear that participation in international programs is a good thing, but we will always remain guests there,” said Vladimir Polvektov, head of security at one of the launch pads at Russia’s base at Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin was more positive about the station, calling it “a clear and convincing example of mutually beneficial cooperation.”

On the American side, tensions have mounted over delays to the station caused by Russia’s financial collapse. Analysts said NASA should expect such delays when dealing with nations under pressing economic strains.

“All of our management systems are based on assumptions of abundance,” said Howard E. McCurdy, an expert on NASA at the American University School of Public Affairs. “Most of the world does not live under those assumptions.”

In the cramped quarters of the space station, small cultural differences can become huge sticking points. Americans have learned to tolerate Russian rations, such as jellied fish, which can be “hard to take at first,” Bowersox said. Will the French and their finicky palates stomach such foods? And will European nations follow NASA’s strict prohibition against alcohol? On Mir, vodka was a standard commodity.

Divisions may not necessarily occur along national lines. As the mid-70s Skylab mission showed with a public fight over scheduling, space crews bond closely and sometimes team up against controllers on the ground. On the station, that means astronauts from different countries might take the same side in a dispute against ground-based managers from their own countries. Jack Stuster, an anthropologist at Anacapa Sciences in Santa Barbara and an expert on human performance in extreme environments, said that living aboard a station may spawn a “space-faring culture” yet to be imagined. Others go further, wittily suggesting that residence in space might create a new species, Homo spaciens, adapted to life without gravity.

Many space station watchers are excited about implications of the project that extend beyond space exploration.

“One of the great opportunities is to teach people of the world to work together on great high-tech projects . . . maybe to offset global warming or deflect asteroids,” McCurdy said.

Bowersox, speaking of newly formed friendships with Russian cosmonauts, added: “Would you have believed this was even possible 20 years ago?”

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Times staff writer John Daniszewski contributed from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, to this story.

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International Partners

These are the 16 nations participating in the International Space Station and their contributions:

United States: Developing and operating major elements and systems aboard the station. These include three connecting modules, a laboratory module called Destiny, truss segments, four solar arrays and a habitation module. The systems being developed include thermal control; life support; guidance, navigation and control; data handling; power systems; communications; and tracking. The United States also operates shuttle flights to supply station and ferry crew.

Russia: Two research modules, living quarters called the Zvezda service module with its own life support and habitation systems, a platform of solar arrays that can supply about 20 kilowatts of power, logistics transport vehicles and Soyuz spacecraft for crew return and transfer.

Canada: A space arm and dual-armed robot to be used for assembly and maintenance tasks on the space station.

European Space Agency*: Columbus, a pressurized laboratory to be launched on the space shuttle and a logistics transport vehicle to be launched on the Ariane 5; some station equipment.

Japan: Kibo, an experiment module consisting of facilities for performing experiments, storing supplies and transporting cargo.

Italy: Three pressurized modules, Leonardo, Raffaello and Donatello, designed to transport equipment and supplies to and from the station.

Brazil: An “express pellet” that will carry experiments to be placed outside the station.

* Composed of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain

*

Sources: NASA and the European Space Agency

Researched by USHA LEE McFARLING and MALOY MOORE/Los Angeles Times