Mir - introduction
In 1986, the Soviet Union launched the Mir Space Station, the “second generation” that followed the Salyut series of space stations. The Mir was designed for a five-year life on orbit. It remained in use for fourteen years. During the first ten years, it performed well, with few safety issues. However, during the last four years, the aging station -- operating at more than two times beyond its design lifetime -- encountered a variety of safety hazards and human factors issues. Despite these often serious problems, the Mir crews always found a way to save the station, and no crew member was seriously injured or killed. "Mir" (Мир) in Russian can mean world or peace.
Knock Knock
Leonov's comrade accidentally locked himself in a compartment. He spent several minutes banging on the locked door and shouting, only to hear Leonov finally murmur: "Who's there?" recalls Russian space agency spokesman Vyacheslav Mikhailichenko.
Booty
When the Mir crew ran out of alcohol reserves, they would often go on "treasure-seeking" expeditions for more, tearing down interior panels to find bottles hidden by previous crews, said Alexander Poleshchuk, who spent six months on board Mir in 1993. "Sometimes we would bump into a bottle of cognac. What a joy it was," Poleshchuk said in a recent interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda.
You're in Trouble
But unlike cosmonauts — who for luck urinate on the back tire of the bus that takes them to the launch pad — the officials who command them from Mission Control near Moscow prefer to remain "serious" and "concentrated," said Viktor Blagov, Mir's deputy control chief. "No, we don't do anything like that on our control panels," Blagov added, laughing.
Tang addiction
Hoarding seems to have occurred on every polar expedition on record. Food seems to take on an importance on long-duration polar expeditions that some other form of gratification enjoys in the workaday world, like money, sex, and drugs. In any event, the prefabricated nature of foodstuffs in space has prevented crewmembers from irritating their crewmates overmuch with making too much of a mess. The worst case from the Mir-NASA missions seems to have been Dave Wolf’s misapprehension in how a container of black currant jelly should be opened, that created a bit of a mess. The typical food incident that occurs on space missions is eating something that one is not supposed to eat. Lebedev and Berezevoy on Salyut 7 ate onions that were meant for an agricultural experiment. One can perhaps look the other way when one considers that the men may have been craving “freshies” (fresh vegetables), and that the dulled palate that space flyers experience dictated they eat something spicy. Probably more than one astronaut or cosmonaut has consumed foodstuffs meant for television commercials. Jerry Linenger, expecting pretzels to be sent up to him, almost ate the pretzel bag prop that was needed for the Rold Gold commercial.
Do you copy? Over.
Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov managed to chat to a truck driver on a road in South Africa as he flew hundreds of kilometers overhead in 1992. Krikalyov sneaked an amateur radio onboard Mir and used it to establish a link with the truck driver, who was heading to Kimberley. Krikalyov's efforts to explain that he was actually talking from high above, the South African refused to believe the cosmonaut. The driver rogered "See you in Kapstadt," as he signed off.
Excerpts from:
"Pranks show lighter side of Mir" - The Moscow Times
"The Mir Crew Safety Record: Implications for Space Colonization" - Marilyn Dudley-Rowley
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