Russians Say Nasa Exaggerating Troubles

Russia’s space agency lashed back at NASA Thursday, charging the Americans with exaggerating troubles aboard the Mir space station and losing their nerve over minor glitches.

“We would ask the Americans: What kind of experts are you to think about deserting this unique space platform?” Viktor Blagov, deputy chief of the Russian Space Mission Control Center, told The Associated Press.

The Mir, the world’s only manned space station, has had a run of bad luck: a fire in February, the failure of the main oxygen-generating system last month and leaking coolant loops that overheated the main living module to an uncomfortable 86 degrees last week.

But Russian officials insist those problems can be fixed soon and don’t mean the 11-year-old orbital outpost, designed to last only five years, has become unsafe.