Atlantis flew the fifth Shuttle-Mir docking in January 1997, continuing the rotation of American astronauts living aboard the Russian station. The crew delivered Jerry Linenger to Mir and brought home John Blaha, whose months in orbit had added to NASA's growing store of long-duration experience.
The mission transferred nearly three tonnes of water, supplies and experiments between the two spacecraft, the heaviest exchange yet, as the logistics of sustaining a resident crew matured. Linenger's stay would soon turn dramatic when a fire broke out aboard Mir weeks later, a reminder of the risks these long missions carried. For now, the five-person crew's smooth docking underscored how routine the once-historic joining of Shuttle and Mir had become.
Atlantis's January 1997 visit to Mir exchanged John Blaha for Jerry Linenger and transferred some three tonnes of water, food and equipment — by now a practised routine, with the two crews working through cargo lists in two languages for five docked days.
Blaha came home after four months having found the experience harder than he expected, particularly the first weeks of adapting to a Russian crew's rhythms and a station where he was, unavoidably, the guest. His candour about the psychological difficulty of long-duration flight — the boredom, the isolation, the sense of being a passenger in someone else's home — influenced how NASA prepared everyone who followed.
Linenger's own increment turned out to be the most dangerous of the programme. Three weeks after this flight departed, an oxygen-generating canister caught fire aboard Mir and burned for some fourteen minutes, filling the station with smoke and cutting off the route to one of the escape craft. He spent the rest of his stay dealing with the consequences, and came home with a good deal to say about it.
