Gift-Bearing Atlantis Crew Bids Farewell To Renewed Mir
After dropping off a new computer and a new American crewman, the astronauts aboard space shuttle Atlantis hugged their Mir comrades goodbye Thursday.
“Be careful down there on Earth. It’s awful close to the ground, and somebody could get hurt,” astronaut David Wolf, who will spend the next four months aboard Mir, told his departing shuttle colleagues.
The shuttle crew was scheduled to seal the hatches Thursday evening and undock today, leaving the 11-1/2-year-old Mir in somewhat better shape than it was a few weeks ago, thanks to a new main computer.
“We installed the computer and it’s working perfectly. Perfectly!” said Mir commander Anatoly Solovyov, rapping his fist on a metal table for good luck.
The shuttle is bringing home American Michael Foale, who spent a tumultuous 4-1/2 months aboard Mir. Foale is due back on Earth on Sunday.
“It’s quite a long time to be in one place,” he said, “and I’m looking forward to the adventure of learning how to walk again and live in my house with my wife and my children, get to know my wife again, date her again, maybe marry her again.”