Word: cosmonaut
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...sent lawmakers into orbit; Senator Jake Garn took a junket on the Space Shuttle back before the Challenger disaster, and John Glenn heads off in the fall. But never has America put a presidential aide in space. Can this one fly? "We can teach anyone to become a cosmonaut as long as he's not an idiot," said Mir's deputy flight director Viktor Blagov. So that's okay, then...
FUNNY RUSSIA Now Russians are punch-lines. The cosmonaut in Armageddon (1998; 6) provides comic relief, but he helps save the world...
When they break out the cognac aboard Mir, it's usually a sign that the cosmonauts have survived yet another harrowing test of their nerves. Today, they could be forgiven for taking a celebratory nip: In what might have been a rerun of last June's disastrous collision, the autopilot docking mechanism aboard a supply ship again failed -- but this time, Mir's commander managed to use the manual controls to safely dock the vessel. And inside the cargo vessel, for the cosmonaut who has everything, a new set of wrenches. Now they can fix that damn door...
...sensitive? Well, the string of accidents that turned Mir into a global joke began just over a year ago, and Solovyov is bound to be wary of a repeat performance. Especially when the news is pretty embarrassing: Not even Nikolai Budarin, the strongest cosmonaut of the current crop, could open that darn hatch -- and he broke three wrenches trying. ?I am somewhat distressed that we have failed to open the hatch,? Solovyov conceded. That?s an understatement. The space walk now has to wait until a new stock of wrenches is sent up in the next cargo ship -- and Mission...
...Glenn certainly isn't getting any younger ? he's 15 years the senior of Stori Musgraze, currently the oldest ever cosmonaut. But that's the whole point ? NASA will be able to look at the same astronaut, then and now, to discover whether old age makes any difference in weightlessness...