Crews Aboard Atlantis-Mir Test Stability of Joined Spacecraft

The linked U.S. space shuttle Atlantis and Russian space station Mir remained “rock steady” in Earth orbit Saturday as jet thrusters were fired to see how much shaking the ships could stand, NASA said.

Mir crew members Vladimir Dezhurov, Gennady Strekalov and Norman E. Thagard, spending their 109th day in space, underwent tests to determine how nearly four months away from gravity has affected their metabolism.

After 48 hours of joint operations on the first international docking flight in 20 years, the crews of the shuttle and Mir deliberately shook up the joined craft.

They temporarily closed and locked the doors between their vessels while Atlantis commander Robert L. (Hoot) Gibson fired the shuttle’s 44 jet thrusters.

No jiggling was visible on television pictures beamed to Earth. “The docked space complex was rock steady throughout a series of thruster firings,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman Rob Navias said at Mission Control in Houston.

In a news conference from space, Gibson described Thursday’s historic docking of the two craft as “perhaps the proudest moment of my life” and “certainly . . . the piloting challenge of my career.” Astronaut Bonnie J. Dunbar, who spent most of 1994 in training, used the briefing to chastise lawmakers who want to cut federal spending on space exploration.

“The space program is less than 1% of our annual budget,” Dunbar said. “We spend more on pizza and potato chips than we do on America’s space program.”

Saturday was “the busiest day of biomedical experiments” aboard the joined vessels during what will be five days of docked operations, Navias said.

Atlantis is scheduled to leave Tuesday with Dezhurov, Strekalov and Thagard aboard.