Former Cosmonaut, 58, Will Be Getting A Lift Like Glenn, Idaho Teacher However, Nasa Says It’s Not Reinstituting Citizen-In-Space Program

First it was John Glenn. Then it was an Idaho schoolteacher who had been waiting for 12 years. Now a 58-year-old ex-cosmonaut will be rocketing into orbit aboard a space shuttle after losing 55 pounds.

What’s going on?

More important, who’s next?

On Wednesday, five days after declaring that Glenn and schoolteacher Barbara Morgan will fly in space, NASA announced that Valery Ryumin will be hitching a ride to Mir in May aboard space shuttle Discovery.

Ryumin is director of Russia’s Mir-shuttle program. During his cosmonaut days, he rocketed away three times and spent one year in orbit. But that was way back in the late 1970s and 1980. He has one thing going for him, anyway.

“I am 58, so I am much younger than Sen. Glenn,” the slimmed-down Ryumin said.

Glenn will be 77 when he blasts off aboard Discovery in October as part of a study on aging. “I’ll carry my full load,” he promised during a tour of Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday.

Regardless of appearances, NASA insists that it is not reinstituting its citizen-in-space program of the mid-1980s and that only those who are qualified and have a legitimate purpose will be launched into orbit. Teachers with science backgrounds - like Morgan, a third-grade teacher in McCall, Idaho, with a bachelor’s degree in biology - will be among those considered.

“I have never favored just opening it up for different professions unless there was a reason for it,” Glenn said.

So why is Ryumin flying?

Ryumin said he wants to inspect the 12-year-old Mir to see how it’s holding up after a fire, a collision with a cargo ship and many other problems.

Space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to lift off tonight to Mir with a crew of seven, including Cheney High School graduate Michael Anderson.

The flight also will carry Andrew Thomas, who will be the seventh and final American to live on the Russian station. Ryumin’s flight will be the last shuttle-Mir hookup.

“I admit that anybody else could be able to do this task as well,” Ryumin said. “I understand there is no irreplaceable people in this world. But I was the one to come up with this proposal to my management, and this proposal was approved.”

Glenn got his shuttle ticket the same way - by asking for it.

Morgan, on the other hand, got hers by being patient. She was the backup for Christa McAuliffe, NASA’s teacher-in-space designee who died in the 1986 Challenger disaster.