For over a year, the British astronaut Michael Foale went through a heavy battery of training in Russia. The task asked: as a representative of NASA (US space agency), he would board with two Russian cosmonauts for a mission aboard the Mir space station.
What Foale did not know was that on June 25 that in 1997, he and his two colleagues would be faced with something totally unexpected: the shock of a ship unmanned cargo from the station.
The trio had just a few minutes to save a disaster - and managed through a combination of calm, improvisation and a little luck.
pioneering
Russia had launched the Mir ten years earlier, in 1986. The program pioneered by allowing loitering human in space. Besides, it was a response to the missions of NASA to the moon.
However, it went through a series of ups and downs technological, political and economic during his long run.
The collapse of the Soviet Union made the program lose money, and at a crucial moment of political transition, a cosmonaut came to be practically abandoned in orbit.
After the end of the Soviet era, there was a period of international cooperation on the project, which includes regular shuttle flights NASA and the participation of other countries astronauts.
When landed on in 1997 season, Michael Foale could already see the signs of aging and a dangerous fire that Mir had suffered months earlier.
"Two things impressed when you opened the floodgates to enter," he said Foale told the BBC. "The first was the smell, like that of a garage full of oil, and perhaps a little moisture. Certainly there was mold on Mir."
The second said the astronaut, the fact that the station was small and cluttered - it was like "entering a person's esophagus."
A few weeks later, he adapted. "I was experiences, was happy."
Michael Foale suggested the firing of the rocket Soyuz capsule
Maneuver
The supplies arrived every two months in an unmanned spacecraft called Progress.
Under normal conditions it automatically acoplava on Mir thanks to expensive technology developed in Ukraine.
But budget cuts have occurred since the end of the Soviet Union forced the space program to leave the system, leading the crew of the Mir having to maneuver manually.
After a series of problems, Foale and his two Russian colleagues had to abort the maneuver several times. At June 25, they returned to try. The commander Vasily Tsibliyev and Aleksandr (Sasha) Lazutkin, the flight engineer, tried to guide the cargo ship radio system, controlling the movement of a small screen.
"When I saw Vasili screen, I realized that the orientation was completely wrong," said the British
Then he heard Sasha cries: "Michael, escape module!" Russian --the referred to the Soyuz capsule, which was attached to the station and was the only chance to save their lives. "He was telling me, 'Go up there and be saved!'"
As he floated toward the Soyuz, Foale felt the entire season shake and start spinning.
The cargo ship had crashed into the solar panels of one of the main modules, Spektr. The impact was a crack in the hull, causing the air to escape quickly. The internal pressure began to drop and oxygen decreased.
"Emergency alarms start ringing when there is a leak (air). I felt my ears popping ... and there was a whistle in Spektr," Foale said.
Progress achieved one of the solar panels; the impact broke the module hull
'Dead Season'
If the three do not do something, they would lose consciousness in less than 30 minutes. But they decided not to leave the station.
Sasha Lazutkin began to disconnect module cables damaged by the collision and looking for something great to seal the hull breach.
He found that a sluice, with the suction stopped in place. Even so, Mir continued to rotate uncontrollably.
To make matters worse, the crew was without power. The batteries were exhausted and no longer operated the removal of oxygen and carbon dioxide regeneration system. They had lost touch with Moscow and any other base.
"The station was completely dead. And it was not like in the movies where things are solved instantly," Foale told the BBC.
The truth is that they needed at least six hours to stabilize the situation.
Michael Foale remembered something that one of the first commanders Mir told him, firing rockets Soyuz could stop a rotation.
That's what the crew did, taking care not to use too much fuel - they might need the Soyuz to escape in case of another emergency.
"After that, amazingly, we are exposed to sunlight. Suddenly, the fans started to run, the lights came on ... I said 'Vasili, we can!'."
The return
Damage to Mir left almost dead season throughout the month following the accident. "We could only keep our lives, nothing more," said astronaut.
In October, NASA sent a transport ship that Michael Foale returned to Earth.
"As we walked away in the station, I looked and I thought, would not bother me if I never came back to see her."
The Russians, in turn, sent a new crew to make the necessary repairs.
Mir remained in space for three more years before Russia would allow her to leave orbit and disintegrated on re-entry on 23 March 2001.
The work and lived experience there were valuable for space missions that occur in the future - Mir was the basis for the International Space Station.
Before retiring, Foale did a new journey with NASA.
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