Russian cosmonauts at fault in Mir crash
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia may
fine two of its own cosmonauts for
history’s worst space collision,
rejecting the veteran crew members’
claim that Mir’s worn-out equipment
was to blame, an overseer of the
space station said Tuesday.
A space commission concluded
“beyond any doubt” that Vasily
Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin
caused the damaging June 25 crash,
which occurred during the practice
docking of an unmanned robot
spacecraft to the aging space station.
“Personally, we felt pity for the
boys, but the facts remain,” Valery
Ryumin, the Russian coordinator of
the Mir-NASA program, told the
ITAR-Tass news agency. “Most like
ly we will have to fine them.”
American astronaut Michael
Foale, who remains aboard Mir, was
the third member of the crew at the
time of the accident. However, he -
like other visiting astronauts - is not
usually involved in operating or
maintaining Mir.
Lazutkin and Tsibliyev returned
to Earth after the crash, which
bashed one of Mir’s modules and cost
the space station about half of its
i power.
crew is to blame sounds rather
strange,” he said in a brief commen
tary after the finding Tuesday.
Ryumin, who also is deputy
director of Energia - the company
that built the Mir and oversees it -
said the finding was reached after a
thorough examination of flight data.
But he would not specify in the inter
view what error the crew made.
It’s not even certain the decision
will stand. The head of the Russian
Space Agency’s manned flights pro
gram, Mikhail Sinelshchikov, told
ITAR-Tass later that the commission
has yet to make a final decision and
another panel could still overturn it.
A spokesman at Russian Mission
Control said ground controllers were
unaware of the decision. A call to
The conclusions of the commis
sion, which Ryumin said signed off
on its report Tuesday, are unlikely to
put all questions about the collision
to rest.
■\ Skeptics could argue that Russia
has a vested interest in finding that
technical problems aboard Mir - a
cash cow for their struggling space
program - did not cause the collision.
“It has been a longtime tradition
here in Russia to look for scape
goats,” Tsibliyev, the Mir comman
der, said after returning to Earth on
Aug. 14.
—^A/news anchor for Russian
Television noted that the Mif was
plagued by breakdowns throughout
the crew’s six-month mission. “Such
a categorical conclusion that the
Ryumin went unanswered.
Russia’s space program has an
elaborate bonus system that includes
not only hazardous-duty pay, but spe
cific payments for such tasks as
spacewalks and manual dockings.
There is also precedent for finan
cial penalties, with cosmonaut
Gennady Strekalov saying he was
stripped of some benefits for refus
ing to make an extra space walk from
Mir in 1995.
This summer’s near-calamitous
Mir accident occurred during a prac
tice manual docking. Tsibliyev was
guiding a 7-ton supply ship toward its
port by remote control when it start
ed coming in too fast, banging into
the Spektr laboratory module and
puncturing its aluminum hull.
The Spektr had to be sealed off,
causing the Mir to lose nearly half its
power.
Some theorized that the Mir crew
accidentally stuffed too much
garbage into the cargo ship. One
Russian newspaper, citing an uniden
tified source, claimed Tsibliyev
failed to properly record in Mir’s
computer the extra weight on the
cargo ship.
Reports in other Russian papers
seemed to exonerate the crew.
Officials at the Russian Space
Agency had said an inquiry couldn’t
determine what happened until the
men came back to Earth. But a week
before their return, President Boris
Yeltsin - presumably briefed by
space officials - said it looked like a
case of human error.
Tsibliyev and flight engineer
Lazutkin apparently anticipated such
a verdict. Following their return, they
blamed the collision on the 11-year
old Mir’s run-down equipment and
expressed bitterness at being found
at fault by Yeltsin and the media.
He said he couldn’t explain why
the cargo ship spun out of control,
only that “there is no specific person
to blame.”
The Mir’s current crew was busy
Tuesday preparing for a spacewalk
this weekend in which they will try to
find and patch holes in the damaged
Spektr.
The mission is expected to be the
first in a series of spacewalks needed
to spot and patch holes in the Spektr.
Correction
In Friday’s Daily Nebraskan,
Charles Zidko of Spencer was quoted
as saying “I will fight all the way to
the pen to see that money and safety
are never substituted.” Zidko said
that he would fight all the way to the
end, not the pen.
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