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Lucy Flint

How successful was the Mir component of the Shu5le-Mir programme in improving US-Russian rela;ons in the 1990s?

Introduc/on

Shu2le-Mir (also known as the Phase One programme) was a 4-year programme that ran from 1994 to 1998. It was based on an interna/onal agreement between the US and Russia that outlined that seven American astronauts would tour the Russian Mir space sta/on, whilst 11 American shu2le missions would carry Russian cosmonauts. This report analyses the impact that the Mir space sta/on had on improving US-Russian rela/ons during this period, and the efficiency of the Phase One programme.

Image 1: The Shu2le-Mir Increment astronauts pose for their official portrait - from leP to right, Norman Thagard, Andrew Thomas, John Blaha, Shannon Lucid, Jerry Linenger, Michael

Foale and David Wolf.

The programme was led by NASA’s Frank Culbertson, and the American astronauts who flew to Mir as a part of it were Norman Thagard, Shannon Lucid, John Blaha, Jerry Linenger, Mike Foale, Dave Wolf, and Andy Thomas. Each astronaut was chosen to bring different strengths to the programme, in the hope of producing a balance of characters that would allow for the best interna/onal partnership to be created. Addi/onally, however, shu2le crews gained experience of Mir and working with the Russians during the changeover of American astronauts, which meant that a larger body of NASA astronauts gained exposure to the programme.

Lucy Flint

APer the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the US government was keen to make a posi/ve rela/onship with the new na/on, and especially to stop the leaking of nuclear weapons or secrets to enemy na/ons, meanwhile the new-born Russia was bankrupt and was in desperate need of money and a powerful ally. The Phase One programme was borne of these challenging circumstances with the hope of familiarising the two great na/ons, however, the extent of the impact that it really had on improving interna/onal rela/ons is debatable. The Interna/onal Space Sta/on was an important success of the programme, and could be used as the prime example of US-Russian rela/ons today, as astronauts strive for scien/fic goals despite poli/cal context. However, not all the poli/cal and scien/fic goals of the scheme were achieved, and tension con/nues between the two na/ons today. It is interes/ng to explore if forcing the two very opposing na/ons to work together so soon aPer the Cold War was such a wise decision. Furthermore, there is discussion over whether a similar ini/a/ve could benefit interna/onal poli/cal rela/onships today and into the future, especially aPer the deorbit of the Interna/onal Space Sta/on, which will reportedly be near to 2028 . 1

US mo/va/ons

In June 1992, US president George Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed to a pioneering space co-opera/on agreement. In September 1993, US vice president Al Gore and Russian PM Victor Chernomyrdin added to this with plans for the interna/onal space sta/on, with an agreement for the US to fund the Russian Space Agency (RSA) with $400 million in return for US astronauts to be able to crew the Mir . However, this was in no way a 2

policy driven primarily by science, both Bush and Clinton had very clear poli/cal goals that they hoped to achieve by the co-opera/on of the two na/ons.

It is clear that the US hoped to avoid nuclear disaster by drawing Moscow into a Western-style partnership and inves/ng in the country’s technology and industry to stop Soviet engineers driPing to renegade countries like Iraq, Iran, and Libya . APer the 3

dissolu/on of the USSR, there was anxiety in the US about disarmament of nuclear warheads, and the possibility that the bankrupt new na/on Russia may sell their weaponry to other na/ons, or else its nuclear technology to trading partners such as India . Mir 4

astronaut Mike Foale has said that Russian scien/sts and engineers were not being paid, and might poten/ally be expor/ng nuclear technologies to Korea and Iran. According to Foale,

Mike Wall, ‘How Will the Interna/onal Space Sta/on Fall to Earth?’, Space.com <h2ps://www.space.com/1

13071-interna/onal-space-sta/on-reentry-plans.html> [accessed 24/11/17].

William J. Broad, ‘Shu2le Set for Rendezvous Today With Russia's Mir’, New York Times <h2ps://2

partners.ny/mes.com/library/na/onal/science/nasa/062995sci-nasa-broad.html> [accessed 24/11/17].

Bryan Burrough, Dragonfly: NASA and the crisis aboard Mir (4th Estate Ltd.: 1999), p. 171.3


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and agreed by other sources, Clinton and Yeltsin agreed to collaborate, partly to pay these engineers and scien/sts, but also as a way of injec/ng “safe money” into Russia . 5

The US was also aiming for the crea/on of an interna/onal space sta/on, and aPer their own Freedom sta/on ran out of budget, interna/onal collabora/on became a necessity for reaching this goal, especially in learning about long term space flight. It was important to forge friendships and make rela/onships between experts in the two na/ons for a collabora/ve sta/on in the future to be plausible. However, the way that this was approached made it very difficult for NASA to execute effec/vely. The Phase one programme was described as “a Washington boondoggle, a poli/cal thing”4 that alienated NASA employees, even if they wouldn’t openly speak against it. NASA was a scien/fic organisa/on that was not designed to implement projects with a poli/cal agenda. In fact, Mir astronaut Jerry Linenger clarified that he believed that the program was “mainly a form of foreign aid to Russia” from the Clinton administra/on, rather than a pursuit aPer good science . Phase 6

One was a poli/cally jus/fiable way of funnelling money to Russia, and NASA was forced to comply.

Addi/onally, a lot of the aims of the Phase One programme focused around “working with the Russians” , which covered opera/ons, joint science requirements, hardware and 7

systems integra/on, and the forging of rela/onships between scien/sts, engineers, and specialists. This was especially relevant to the US, aPer the failure of their own plans for a space sta/on, dubbed “Freedom” by President Reagan in 1988 . The US hoped to use Mir 8

both as a scien/fic learning opportunity and as a poli/cal test for this grander plan, that was a “cornerstone” of President Bill Clinton’s Russian strategy2. This inten/on was echoed in the words of Discovery shu2le Commander Jim Wetherby on its ‘Near-Mir’ mission of February 1995. As the two vehicles came within 37 feet of each other, Wetherby apparently remarked that “we are bringing our na/ons closer together…the next /me we approach, we will shake your hand and together we will lead our world into the next millennium” . Mir Commander 9

Aleksandr Viktorenko responded with the words “we are one, we are human”, a no/on that was hoped to be the core of US/Russian collabora/on.

Although this produced impressive soundbites, the astronauts themselves found a conflict between the scien/fic and poli/cal aims of the programme. The fourth Mir astronaut, Jerry Linenger, felt that he and his Russian colleagues had been “guinea pigs” , a 10

Mike Foale, Mir Space Sta/on Collision 20th Anniversary Event, Saturday 24th June 2017.5

Jerry Linenger, Off the Planet (McGraw-Hill: 2000), p. 36.6

David J. Shayler, ‘American Flights to Mir (Space Shu2le): Sec/on 5’, The History of Mir 1986-2000, The Bri/sh 7

Interplanetary Society (2000).

Marcus Lindroos, ‘Space Sta/on Freedom’, astronauLx.com <h2p://www.astronau/x.com/s/8

spacesta/onfreedom.html> [accessed 24/11/17].

David J. Shayler, ‘American Flights to Mir (Space Shu2le): Sec/on 8’, The History of Mir 1986-2000, The Bri/sh 9

Interplanetary Society (2000).


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poli/cal sacrifice to world peace. He was outspoken in his cri/cism of the programme that he thought was fundamentally flawed, and was “intensely cri/cal” of the RSA and the space sta/on that he claimed was “falling apart around him” . Although this par/cular phrasing is 11

a hyperbole, it does contain some truth. In contrast, in his autobiography, Linenger remarks that “as /me passed, we saw many of the barriers between us fall”, which suggests that he did think he made some progress in US-Russian rela/ons whilst in Star City (the cosmonaut training base near Moscow) . Wendy Lawrence, meanwhile, was concerned that her 12

mission would be more about poli/cs than science, a tough dilemma for the astronauts themselves . This drove divisions through the rela/onships that NASA was intending to 13

strengthen.

Russian mo/va/ons

APer the collapse of the Soviet Union in September 1991, the Russian space programme’s struggles increased immeasurably. The program was definitely “desperate for hard currency” , and collabora/on with the US was the only op/on leP to the Russians to 14

prop up their space agency and keep Mir in space. Since 1989, one source claims budget had been cut by 80% , and from about 1991 to 1998 Russia lost nearly 30% of its real gross 15

domes/c product , however no other sources could be found that either confirm or deny 16

these specific sta/s/cs. The RSA were becoming so desperate that they had started charging $200 a day to visit Star City, as well as extor/onate amounts for interviews with astronauts and flight directors, whilst staff were payed so poorly that they were forced to moonlight with other jobs such as taxi drivers . The injec/on of cash that an American agreement 17

guaranteed was essen/al to keeping the RSA alive. Thus, an agreement was come to in September 1993 for the US to exchange $400 million in return for 5 American astronauts to tour Mir2 (this was later increased to 7 astronauts). By February 1994, the first astronauts started training in Star City, Moscow.

It was essen/al for the RSA to maintain the opera/on of Mir, because it was seen as “the crowning glory of communism” , all that was remaining of the Soviet Union as a global 18

superpower. APer the dissolu/on of the USSR, the na/on rapidly fell from a posi/on of world power to a far weakened state. Russia had major economic problems, low produc/on,




Colin Foale, WaystaLon to the Stars (Headline: 1999), p. 42.14


Ma2hew Johnston, ‘The Russian Economy Since the Collapse of the Soviet Union’, Investopedia <h2ps://16

www.investopedia.com/ar/cles/inves/ng/012116/russian-economy-collapse-soviet-union.asp> [accessed 24/11/2017].

Colin Foale, WaystaLon to the Stars (Headline: 1999), p. 59-60.17


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unemployment, infla/on, and a significant wealth gap, on top of high levels of corrup/on and crime, leading to the emergence of the Russian mafia . People also missed aspects of 19

the controlled economy, such as the fact that they no longer had state-funded healthcare, assured employment, or controlled prices and wages. These problems led to a feeling of chaos and unrest in the na/on, and consequently, the new government was desperate to keep the space sta/on in orbit as a unifying symbol of the country, something that Russians could look to as a reason to be proud of their country.

Russia also needed US investment to a2empt to reduce exploita/on by newly rival na/ons such as the Ukraine, which built and sold the Kurs computer systems that the RSA relied on for docking Progress resupply modules to Mir. They “served a key func/on” to the 20

RSA that the agency itself essen/ally couldn’t recreate. The Ukraine consistently “demanded hard currency” for Kurs at a price that they were free to inflate as much as they desired, as 21

the RSA had failed in crea/ng a similar system of their own. In fact, the cost of Kurs had increased by 400% in 5 years , forcing the Russians to develop a manual docking system of 22

their own, TORU, which was never fully func/onal for Mir and led to mul/ple safety incidents. The Russians hoped to be able to use the payload capacity of the American space shu2le to return Kurs systems from used Progress modules for reuse, in order to save money on new modules.

‘ConorEngelb’, ‘The Impact of the Collapse of the USSR’, ConsulLng Student <h2ps://19

consul/ngstudent.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/the-impact-of-the-collapse-of-the-ussr.pdf> [accessed 11/10/17].

David M. Harland, The Story of Space StaLon Mir (Springer, Praxis Publishing: 2005), p. 262.20



Lucy Flint

Image 2: Russian Space Sta/on Mir, backdropped against Earth, taken from the Space Shu2le Atlan/s following undocking from the sta/on at the end of STS-71 on the 4th of July 1995

“The honeymoon phase”

On the American side of the collabora/on, the Phase One programme started slowly, as NASA struggled to find astronaut volunteers willing to surrender shu2le missions to spend months preparing, isolated in Star City, then experiencing a tour of the Mir with two cosmonauts for a further number of months. There was also s/ll a s/gma a2ached to the Russians from the astronauts with a military background, who “just could not stomach the idea of working with our former cold war foes” . Despite this, enough astronauts were 23

eventually gathered to travel to Moscow to begin their training for Mir in 1994, but were greeted by none of the facili/es that the US had paid in advance for. Classes were taught en/rely in Russian, and an isola/on caused by a lack of integra/on of the Americans into Star City social circles. Astronaut Jerry Linenger is quoted as saying that “like so many things in Russia, what was promised was oPen not delivered” . This s/rred up a lot of resentment 24

among astronauts working with the Russians, and a general feeling that they would be much be2er off alone. This was not an auspicious start.

Phase One began with a Mir flyby, followed by several shu2le dockings and then astronaut Norman Thagard stayed aboard Mir for 115 days. The constant American presence on Mir begun with Shannon Lucid’s 188-day mission from March 1996. Her mission was extended by six weeks, allowing her to set the record for /me spent in space for a woman, and she consequently “returned to Earth a hero” ,according to the press, aPer being widely 25

celebrated by the media. Lucid was personally congratulated on her achievement by President Clinton, receiving a Congressional Medal of Honour, and featuring on the cover of Newsweek. Her mission was said to have “earnt more goodwill with the public” than a dozen shu2le flights20, but also Lucid’s success was invaluable in gaining the support of Congress for the con/nua/on of Phase One, as they were in control of funding it. On December 15th, 1996, New York Times writer Danielle Bernstein asked, “what be2er role model could there be than the astronaut Shannon Lucid?” . This was also the first moment in the general 26

media that Phase One was discussed and celebrated, which could have contributed to discussions on improving Russian rela/ons, or lessening some of the public dread towards Russia.

APer the slow start to the programme, the rela/vely unevenxul and successful Mir tours of Norman Thagard and especially Shannon Lucid helped to quell doubts about Phase One, and ease nego/a/on tensions between the US and Russia, as everything seemed to be going exactly as planned. Dan Goldin, NASA director, claimed aPer the second Mir shu2le




Danielle Bernstein, ‘Heroine Worship’, New York Times <h2p://www.ny/mes.com/1996/12/15/magazine/l-26

heroine-worship-708470.html?ref=topics> [accessed 25/11/17].

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dock that the sta/on was “proving to be an ideal test site for vital engineering research”, and that missions were “already paying back benefits” , paving the way for the extension of 27

Phase One from five to seven Mir tours, extending US-Russian interna/onal coopera/on and allowing this collabora/on to occur with less tension over astronaut safety, training, and treatment.

Failures of the programme

The happy honeymoon phase of the programme was not fated to last long, however. The fourth American astronaut to visit Mir was Jerry Linenger, who was known at NASA for being a hard man to get along with, a perfec/onist who leaned towards arrogance, and in the assessment of psychologists, not ideally suited to long term space flight. He was a scien/st, focused on his experimental goals and in denial of any contribu/on towards the poli/cal aims of US-Russian collabora/on, and consequently he did not endear himself to the Russians. Furthermore, Linenger had insufficient language training and did not pick up the language as easily as some other astronauts, contribu/ng to the fact that, according to cosmonaut colleague Aleksandr Lazutkin, “Jerry did not behave like a Russian” , stopping 28

him from integra/ng properly into his environment. His character created tension in the programme, and undid some of the hard work of the astronauts that toured Mir before him, but he did complete lots of science experiments, and was the first American to spacewalk wearing a Russian spacesuit outside a foreign craP . 29

Linenger thought that, to the Russians, “making money off the Americans seemed to be the overriding considera/on” , and that the Phase One programme was “has/ly thrown 30

together under the guise of poli/cal expediency” , likely prompted by his close calls with 31

death aboard Mir, namely the “near miss” of a Progress collision aPer the failure of the TORU manual docking system, (described by Mike Foale as “a very close call” ) and the fire 32

of February 23rd, 1997 . Jerry felt that he was “treated like a second-class ci/zen”; not a 33

colleague but a visitor to Mir, and that the US-Russian partnership was “anything but equal” , which illustrates that Mir might not have improved their rela/onship with the US at 34

David M. Harland, The Story of Space StaLon Mir (Springer, Praxis Publishing: 2005), p. 249.27


Ben Evans, ‘Jerry Linenger, First American to Make Spacewalk in Russian EVA Suit, Turns 60 Today’, 29

AmericaSpace <h2p://www.americaspace.com/2015/01/16/jerry-linenger-first-american-to-make-spacewalk-in-russian-eva-suit-turns-60-today/> [accessed 28/11/17].



‘Shu2le-Mir Stories - Foale on Fire and "Near Miss"’, Spaceflight <h2ps://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/32

shu2le-mir/history/to-h-f-foale-fire.htm> [accessed 28/11/2017].

Keith Veronese, ‘That One Time a Fire Almost Destroyed the Mir Space Sta/on’, Gizmodo <h2ps://33

io9.gizmodo.com/5978305/figh/ng-a-fire-aboard-the-mir-space-sta/on> [accessed 28/11/17].


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all. However, Linenger con/nued to reflect on his experiences by saying that “we already understood that working with the Russians would be forever difficult, but we had demonstrated that it could be done, despite the difficul/es” , sugges/ng that despite what 35

Linenger considered a very challenging experience, the US and Russia could work together in some capacity.

Image 3: Space shu2le Atlan/s docked to the Mir space sta/on

Linenger’s s/nt aboard Mir brought into light some real communica/on and trust issues between the RSA and NASA. Safety was becoming a huge issue aboard the old and crippled space sta/on by the 1990s, and the RSA appeared to be taking risks to cut costs. For example, NASA was not properly informed that a Progress capsule almost collided with the sta/on on March 4th, 1997, un/l Linenger returned to Earth and explained it in person. Furthermore, the February fire (caused by a faulty oxygen “candle”) was not reported to NASA for 12 hours . This serious fire that filled the sta/on with smoke and burnt fiercely for 36

14 minutes was downplayed as a minor event las/ng a maximum of 90 seconds. As space historian James Oberg wrote, “the big deal [was] not the fires in space, but the smokescreens right here on Earth” . Not only was the Mir becoming an exponen/ally more 37

dangerous environment than it need be, but the lies and deceit to cover up incidents from NASA ins/lled distrust and suspicion in the management who were tasked with trying to learn to trust the Russians again. One ar/cle par/cularly notes that NASA has expressed




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concern over “heightening tension” and that at this point the two space agencies were “already at odds over progress toward building an interna/onal space sta/on” . 38

Later successes of the programme

The programme took an upturn with the start of Michael Foale’s Mir tour. Foale was as astronaut who was in many ways the complete opposite to Jerry Linenger. He was said to be a “perfect diplomat” , with fewer reserva/ons about interna/onal coopera/on and a 39

talent for the Russian language, allowing him to be “welcomed not just as a crewman but as a friend” by his Russian colleagues, and by the end of his tour, truly a third member of the 40

Mir crew rather than a burden and a foreigner. Commander Vasiliy Tsibliyev described him as “a true number-two on-board engineer”41 during his /me on Mir. Alongside his wife Rhonda, Mike threw and a2ended par/es in Star City, breaking down many social barriers and proving that it was possible for the Russians and the Americans to have an amicable rela/onship. This may have been due to the fact, however, that Foale was simply seen as far more European than American due to his dual Bri/sh/US ci/zenship. Foale managed to balance this with his intense training, which he is quoted as comparing to flights with the statement "Flights are hard; but, believe it or not, the training is harder”. 41

On June 25th, 1997, Mir experienced disaster whilst Foale, Tsibliyev and Lazutkin were aboard Mir. A Progress capsule collided with the Spektr module of the sta/on aPer the Kurs docking system was completely blocked, leaving commander Tsibiliyev with absolutely no telemetry data with which to conduct the TORU docking – the astronauts were asked to a2empt the docking with simply a laser rangefinder and a stopwatch, aPer the video display also failed. NASA was floored when they heard of it. The crew tackled the issue professionally and as a group, and Moscow NTV’s Segodyna programme reported that Foale “amazingly fi2ed in with the team which he had only joined only recently” , as he 42

ingeniously held his thumb to the stars and combined a sailor’s technique with a scien/st’s knowledge of physics, to es/mate the spin rate of the space sta/on aPer power was lost to the gyrodynes . This demonstrates the respect and admira/on that he had earnt from the 43

Russian press. Since the event, the crew were brought closer together, “from ‘guest’ to ‘crew’ and from foreigner to brother” , as Mike became an “essen/al, equal part of the 44

‘Astronauts make first joint U.S.-Russian spacewalk’, The Augusta Chronicle <h2p://chronicle.augusta.com/38

stories/1997/04/30/tec_207564.shtml#.Wh2DtLp2vic> [accessed 28/11/17].



‘Training’, NASA History Office <h2ps://history.nasa.gov/SP-4225/training/training.htm> [accessed 41

28/11/17].


Progress Collision with Mir Anima/on’, NASA History Office <h2ps://history.nasa.gov/SP-4225/mul/media/43

progress-collision.htm> [accessed 28/11/17].


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team” . The Russians began to appreciate what NASA and the Americans could bring to 45

their rela/onship.

Image 4: Picture of the damage caused by the collision with Progress M-34, taken by space shu2le Atlan/s during STS-86

However, the incident damaged NASA’s confidence in their collabora/on with the Russians and their commitment to working on Mir. The collision was used as “fuel for Washington congressional commi2ees, whose hos/lity for US-Russian coopera/on was already established” , and the future of the en/re programme was under considerable 46

scru/ny. If the US had withdrawn from the agreement at this point, it would have seriously damaged the rela/onships they had worked so hard to form. NASA later tried to jus/fy the con/nued risk that they placed their astronauts at by claiming that Mir’s troubles were actually helpful, and “allowed the two programmes to work together in a way they never could have otherwise” . There was some truth in this, as since the collision, the Russians 47

were freer with informa/on than they had ever been for the previous three years, the “fear of imminent cancela/on created a climate of coopera/on” . 48

End of program and the legacy of Phase One





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The Phase One programme came to an end in 1998 with the seventh US Mir astronaut Andy Thomas. He was returned to Earth aboard shu2le Discovery on June 12th, as Phase Two of the programme began in November of the same year, with the construc/on of the Interna/onal Space Sta/on, a collabora/on between many na/ons, primarily the US and Russia. It can be argued that only through the challenges faced in Phase One, the rela/onships formed, and the coopera/on demonstrated, could the ISS be created and succeed as a beacon of interna/onal partnership. Famous astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson claims that “the ISS is the prime example of interna/onal coopera/on – the largest in human history, aside from the waging of world wars” . Furthermore, magazine Collier’s 49

wrote that “in the hands of the West, a space sta/on, permanently established beyond the atmosphere, would be the greatest hope for peace the world has ever known… It would be the end of the Iron Curtains” . 50

On the other hand, Stephen Weinberg, par/cle physicist and Nobel Laureate, described the ISS as “an orbital turkey… no important science has come out of it”, and further that absolutely “no science has come out of it” . The idea that the Interna/onal 51

Space Sta/on is simply a statement of poli/cal coopera/on rather detracts from the point itself, a symbol of coopera/on for the sake of having one may not be a self-fulfilling prophesy. Instead the sta/on was intended to be a method through which poli/cal tensions would be eased as rela/onships formed naturally through scien/fic partnership. If the ISS is not seen as a success in US-Russian collabora/on, it casts doubt on the phase one programme that lead to it, and its own effec/veness.

Part of the main legacy of Mir was the mistakes made during the programme that allowed for Phases Two and Three of the programme (construc/on and opera/on of the Interna/onal Space Sta/on) to run smoothly. For example, language was highlighted as a major barrier in limi/ng any American-Russian rela/onship, which wasn’t really realised before. Addi/onally, NASA learnt lessons about trus/ng the Russians with the safety of their astronauts the hard way, as they came close to losing the lives of 2 Americans in space. In the summer aPer the end of the programme, it was supposed to be extensively analysed by NASA, but as a ma2er of fact, chief engineer Mark Bowman claimed that “Phase Two never once paid a2en/on”, implying that the many mistakes made aboard Mir during Phase One were not actually accepted and acted upon as they should have been in order to allow the US-Russian rela/onship to blossom and grow as it could best do in the ideal circumstances.

In his book, “Dragonfly: NASA and the crisis aboard Mir”, space historian Brian Burrough concludes that “one suspects that the geopoli/cal and diploma/c implica/ons of

Neil de Grasse Tyson, Space Chronicles: Facing the UlLmate FronLer (Norton: 2013) p. 76.49

The Editors, ‘What are we wai/ng for?’, Collier’s, 22 March 1952, p. 23.50

Neil de Grasse Tyson, Space Chronicles: Facing the UlLmate FronLer (Norton: 2013) p. 10. (Stephen 51

Weinberg to a space.com reporter during a scien/fic conference at Bal/more’s Space Telescope Science Ins/tute)

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the programme may be even more profound” than just the friendships formed, which 52

seems a good way to summarise the hope that Phase One would have a drama/c effect on interna/onal rela/ons. However, at the /me that this was wri2en, the long-las/ng effects of Phase One were s/ll unknown, whereas today there is poten/al for a wider perspec/ve on events. Burrough con/nues to describe Phase One as “the first shaky step towards a unified tomorrow”41, which illustrated the duality of Phase One as the first step towards unison, and simultaneously fraught with mistakes and disaster.

Image 5: Space Shu2le Discovery lands at the end of STS-91, ending the Shu2le-Mir Program

Conclusion

We can evaluate the success of the Mir Phase One programme against how far it achieved it aims. The US wanted to avoid nuclear disaster by stopping the driP of nuclear technologies east of Europe, to draw Russia into a western-style agreement in order to inject ‘safe money’ into the ailing na/on, as well as to make scien/fic and poli/cal progress towards the crea/on of an interna/onal space sta/on. The Americans especially wanted to foster a posi/ve rela/onship and avoid future conflicts. Russia needed money for their programme, reduc/on in exploita/on by other na/ons, and to sustain of Mir as the last pres/ge of Russia as a global superpower.

From the US angle, nuclear secrets were only contained to a limited extent. Although nuclear weapons did not reach Iraq, Iran, or Libya, today, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and


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North Korea all own nuclear missiles , and although Russia and the US are always in 53

discussion over disarmament, this has not come as far as poli/cians had hoped. The US did succeed in funding the Russian space programme, which should have been a safe investment, if the RSA had not been so riddled with “corrup/on, mismanagement, and crony capitalism” . In fact, a significant por/on of the money was funnelled into the private 54

accounts of senior officials, even though was the only thing keeping the space programme on its feet54. However, the programme did lead well into the further two phases of Shu2le-Mir, and the Interna/onal Space Sta/on was well supported in its construc/on and opera/on by rela/onships formed during Phase One, as well as in the many lessons taught by mistakes aboard Mir. It could be argued that the ISS would never have existed without Phase One, and would not be a symbol of interna/onal collabora/on and unity today.

Furthermore, Phase One should also be assessed from the Russian perspec/ve. The agreement injected $400 million into the Russian Federal Space Agency2, which was exactly what the Russians needed to keep their space programme alive. However, much of this money was not used for its intended purpose, due to widespread corrup/on in the agency, and thus the RSA was s/ll very much struggling for money throughout the Phase One programme, and con/nually asking for more cash from NASA. Addi/onally, the money and partnership with the US did nothing to reduce the exploita/on of Russia by its former allies. In fact, this culminated in the Progress collision into Mir, caused by use of the TORU manual docking system as a cheaper, but untested, alterna/ve to Kurs. The Ukraine knew that Russia relied on its Kurs automa/c docking systems, and so it con/nued to raise their prices even when the US was involved. However, the agreement did at least ensure that Mir was kept in orbit for a further 3 years, un/l its deorbit in March 2001 , when the Interna/onal Space 55

Sta/on replaced it. This meant that Russia kept a symbol of its former poli/cal status, which was important in the development of the new na/on, as Russians could be comforted that the USSR was s/ll part of the country. Mir was only deorbited once the ISS was completed and had begun to be inhabited , so at this point, Russians could rally behind this new 56

symbol of unity and hope.

In terms of specific events and characters, the Phase One programme seems to have been more effec/ve. Astronauts like Mike Foale and Shannon Lucid made a big posi/ve media impact both in the US and in Russia, the circula/on of their achievements created conversa/ons about interna/onal poli/cs in a construc/ve way, and maybe largely contributed to a reduc/on in feelings of enmity between the ci/zens of the two na/ons.

Eleanor Ross, ‘The nine countries that have nuclear weapons’, The Independent < h2p://53

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/poli/cs/the-nine-countries-that-have-nuclear-weapons-a6798756.html> [accessed 28/11/17]

Asif Addiqi, ‘Russia’s Space Program Is Struggling Migh/ly’, Slate <h2p://www.slate.com/ar/cles/54

technology/future_tense/2017/03/russia_s_space_program_is_in_trouble.html> [accessed 28/11/17].

‘The End Is Mir’, NASA <h2ps://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast10mar_1> 55

[accessed 28/11/17].

‘History and Timeline of the ISS’, Casis <h2ps://www.iss-casis.org/about/iss-/meline/> [accessed 28/11/17].56

Lucy Flint

These astronauts also made great interpersonal connec/ons within the RSA, for example with their cosmonaut colleagues. This proved that Russians and Americans truly could work effec/vely together, especially in /mes of hardship, such as during the Mir collision and fire of 1997.

However, astronauts such as Jerry Linenger might have undone some of this hard work in forming good rela/onships, because the Russians did not like him, and even his cosmonaut and astronaut colleagues found him difficult to get along with. This created tension within Phase One and made it harder for astronauts visi/ng aPerwards to regain the lost ground. Addi/onally, the Russian a�tude towards work, and especially the rela/onship between cosmonauts and ground control was very different to the NASA way, and this was something that Phase One did not manage to properly resolve. The Americans would not accept how controlling TsUP (Russian ground control) were of their cosmonauts, comparing them to puppets, whereas the Americans valued their own independence, with Mission Control at NASA being a li2le freer with /metabling their astronauts’ ac/vi/es and free /me . 57

Overall, it is difficult to be sure about whether the Phase One programme and Mir really was an effec/ve way of improving US-Russian poli/cal rela/ons in the 1990s, aPer the Cold War. Although Phase One was a visionary and ideological concept, its execu/on was far from ideal, and there were faults all the way through the programme, from the Washington inten/on and the management, to the astronauts involved and the safety hazards that were overlooked. Even if the media coverage and personal partnerships formed had a flee/ng posi/ve impact on the US-Russian rela/onship, it could be argued that this wore off in /me, and today, the coldness with which the two powerful na/ons regard each other with suggest that Phase One sadly had li2le las/ng impact.

Image 6: The Shu2le-Mir insignia

T. Reiter, ‘Working Aboard the Mir Space Sta/on’, ESA <h2p://www.esa.int/esapub/bulle/n/bullet88/57

reite88.htm> [accessed 28/11/17].

Lucy Flint

The relevance of Phase One today and in the future

Phase One can only be considered a success if it can be demonstrated that it produced a las/ng and meaningful improvement in interna/onal understanding between the US and Russia. If it is agreed that the programme was effec/ve then it is logical to consider further space collabora/on as likely to provide a significant contribu/on to further efforts at improving interna/onal rela/onships, especially for these two na/ons which are s/ll of prime importance to the space industry. Today, the rela/onship between the countries is as complex as ever, perhaps never more so with their current leaders, US president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Pu/n. Pu/n does not appear to have any clear aspira/ons for collabora/on with the US in space aPer the deorbit of the ISS, planned for about 20281. His focus seems to be instead on rockets for use in the military, missiles, and surveillance satellites.

Both leaders seem unlikely to take responsibility for a cohesive space effort. Trump has made lots of claims about NASA under his administra/on, especially that he will “free” 58

them from low-Earth orbit ac/vity and invest in private companies that are making space technologies. In the same speech, Trump cites Russia as a rival, mirroring the Space Race of the Cold War, ques/oning that “Did you ever see what’s going on with space, with Russia and different places? And us? We’re, like, we’re like watching”41. This strongly suggests that Trump is pushing for an exclusively American space programme, and this is supported by his 2012 tweet which stated that Barack Obama had “gu2ed the program and made [the US] dependent on the Russians”, implying that Trump considers interna/onal collabora/on a weakness instead of a strength. The sen/ment can be summarised words of former NASA administrator Charles Bolden, “Congress, don’t make us hitch rides with Russia. Love, NASA” , the /tle of his 2015 ar/cle for the technology magazine Wired. This references the 59

fact that today the US has no way to get astronauts into orbit, and instead relies on buying flights aboard Russian rockets. A different ar/cle quotes professor John Logsdon, a space policy expert on Nasa's Advisory Council, as saying that this reliance on crew transporta/on is "embarrassing", and that "it's very hard for the States to maintain its claim to be the leading space country in the world when we cannot even launch people into orbit." . Dr 60

Igor Sutyagin of the Royal United Services Ins/tute says, from a Russian perspec/ve, space

Marcia Smith, ‘Trump: "I Will Free NASA" From Being Just a LEO Space Logis/cs Agency’, 58

spacepolicyonline.com <h2ps://spacepolicyonline.com/news/trump-i-will-free-nasa-from-being-just-a-leo-space-logis/cs-agency/#.WA_vvNbDfd8.twi2er> [accessed 11/10/17].

Charles Bolden, ‘Congress, Don’t Make Us Hitch Rides With Russia. Love, NASA’, Wired <h2ps://59

www.wired.com/2015/08/congress-dont-make-us-hitch-rides-russia-love-nasa/> [accessed 11/10/17].

Melissa Hogenboom, ‘America and Russia: Uneasy partners in space’, BBC <h2p://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60

science-environment-17074388> [accessed 26/11/17].

Lucy Flint

explora/on today does not have an equal rela/onship, even though US astronauts rely on their capsules. "Russian astronauts feel like space taxi drivers, not equal partners." 61

Image 7: The Interna/onal Space Sta/on, Phase Three of the ISS program

It appears that the US and Russia are moving backwards, as if, aPer Phase One, their rela/onship has declined, with the ISS scheduled for deorbit, and both na/ons resolving to make space pursuits separately. However, all is not lost, and on the September 27th, 2017, the U.S. and Russian space agencies signed an agreement to work together on a space sta/on near the moon that could “expedite manned explora/on both to the moon itself and beyond to Mars” , which suggests that there is hope for future improvement of the 62

Russian-US rela/onship via space collabora/on. Addi/onally, there have been no notable problems between Russian and US inhabitants of the ISS, who “seem to get along just fine” . An ar/cle in ‘The Conversa/on’ stated that “The loss of Mir’s greatest legacy [the 63

ISS] would not just impede human explora/on of the solar system but also poli/cal rela/ons on the surface of our own planet. For decades, the US and Russia have worked closely in space despite tension on the ground” and despite the controversy regarding the success of 64

these ventures there is s/ll reason to hope that this new space sta/on will provide a reason for ongoing coopera/on.

This was all set into mo/on by the first coopera/on of the US and Russia in space, the Phase One programme and the Mir space sta/on, and collabora/on today just would not be possible without the rela/onships formed during Phase One, alongside the lessons learnt from it. This suggests that Mir has had a long las/ng and significant effect on US-Russian poli/cs, not just in the 90s, but all the way through to today and into the future.

Melissa Hogenboom, ‘America and Russia: Uneasy partners in space’, BBC <h2p://www.bbc.co.uk/news/61

science-environment-17074388> [accessed 26/11/17].

Barb Darrow, ‘U.S. and Russia Agree to Collaborate on Space Sta/on 'Gateway' Near the Moon’, Fortune 62

<h2p://fortune.com/2017/09/28/nasa-and-russia-deep-space-gateway/> [accessed 20/11/17].

Yasmin Tayag, ‘Is Space Coopera/on Keeping the U.S. And Russia Together?’, Inverse <h2ps://63

www.inverse.com/ar/cle/4177-is-space-coopera/on-keeping-the-u-s-and-russia-together> [accessed 20/11/17].

Kathryn Harriss, ‘Mir set a precedent for collabora/on in space – but its legacy is now at risk’, The 64

ConversaLon <h2p://theconversa/on.com/mir-set-a-precedent-for-collabora/on-in-space-but-its-legacy-is-now-at-risk-54871> [accessed 20/11/17].

Lucy Flint

Image 8: Pu/n and Trump at the 2017 G20

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Images

1. hDp://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/shuDle/sts-91/hires/s98-13530g.jpg 2. hDp://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/shuDle-mir/photos/sts71/mir-imax/hmg0018.jpg 3. hDp://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/LARGE/GPN-2000-001315.jpg 4. hDp://archive.org/details/STS086-720-091 5. hDp://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuDle/missions/sts-91/images/capBons/

KSC-98EC-0747.html 6. hDp://www.spacefacts.de/mir/patches2/shuDle-mir.jpg 7. hDps://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/

space_staBon_over_earth.jpg 8. hDps://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/720x405/p0581mb2.jpg

Cover Image

hDps://www.walldevil.com/wallpapers/a86/staBon-space-wallpaper-shuDle-outer-wallpapers.jpg

lucy flint - d’overbroeck’srussia that outlined that seven american astronauts would tour the...

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