TIME TO JUMP SHIP?

By Jeffrey Kluger

American astronaut Jerry Linenger was under no illusion that he was flying the world's most reliable spacecraft. He was nonetheless startled not long ago when it suddenly burst into flame.

One of six men aboard the Russian space station Mir, Linenger was relaxing one evening when an alarm rang in the astronomy module. Rushing to the little lab, he found a cosmonaut swatting at a blaze erupting from an air canister. Linenger and his crewmates hurried to help, but the feeble fire extinguishers they carried were no match for the oxygen-fed flames. Ordinarily if things got out of hand, the crew could evacuate in a Soyuz capsule docked outside. But this time the fire blocked their path. Fortunately, the flames exhausted themselves before it became necessary to abandon ship, and the crisis passed.

The Mir fire, which broke out in late February, was not the station's finest hour--but it wasn't its worst, either. Lately, the 11-year-old ship has been falling apart at an alarming rate, and the cash-poor Russians have been unable to do much about it. In March, its oxygen system failed; soon after, its gyroscopes quit; and three weeks ago, an ongoing coolant leak caused temperatures to rise to an oven-like 88[degrees]F.

Last week Linenger and cosmonaut Vasili Tsibliyev took a successful and widely publicized space walk outside the station. This week NASA plans to fly astronaut Mike Foale up to Mir, bringing to five the number of Americans who will have been Russia's orbital guests. Despite these successes, some in Washington are wondering whether it's safe for any American to set foot aboard the rickety ship. Even if Mir survives, others are asking, what does the sorry state of the craft say about Russia's ability to participate in future projects with the U.S.--particularly the long-planned international space station? The best course, doubters say, might be to cut the Russians loose before their collapsing space program takes American projects--or American astronauts--down with it. "We compromised safety before," says John Sensenbrenner, House Science Committee chairman, "and we got the Challenger disaster."

Actually, much of what has gone wrong with Mir is largely a result of unavoidable wear and tear. Improvised fixes have helped the Russians solve problems--at least temporarily--as they have arisen, and experts say that this handyman approach is appropriate for a ship designed for years of use. "The space station is a different vehicle from the shuttle," says James van Laak, a NASA deputy director. "You tolerate a different set of failures."

Lately, however, those failures have become nearly intolerable. After the fire, the crew had to live in gas masks for two days until Mir's air was breathable. When the coolant system failed, the station had to be rotated like a pig on a spit to keep it from overheating in the sun. In April, Congress began work on a budgetary amendment that would require NASA to certify Mir's safety before more Americans go aloft. Russia appears to realize that it will either have to scuttle the ship or invest the money to fix it properly. While Moscow has nothing like the ready rubles that flowed during the Sputnik days, the government is proving resourceful at scratching up funds.

Yuri Koptev, general director of the Russian Space Agency, reports that four private Russian banks are offering loans of 800 billion rubles, approximately $140 million, to keep the space program afloat. And Mir is making impressive progress toward becoming self-supporting. Foreign countries have paid premium prices to fly their astronauts and experiments aboard the station. Between 1992 and 1996, annual revenues from such bookings climbed from $20 million to $471 million.

If the money stream continues, not only Mir will benefit. Russia has agreed to provide one of the international space station's key components: a module that will serve as the crew's living quarters. The pod was supposed to be launched next spring, but the Russians now say they will be eight months late. If Moscow fails to deliver, the U.S. must provide a $200 million replacement. This has NASA administrator Daniel Goldin fuming. "I hold Russia accountable for its promises," he says. "Their bills are due in full right now."

While Washington hasn't sent Moscow any formal dunning notices, the signals from the West are clear. In April, Congress drew up a list of conditions Russia must meet if it is to continue in the program; next week the U.S. will confer with the station's other international partners to decide if those terms have been met. "We're going to build the station," promises Goldin. "I hope it is with the Russians."

Despite the tensions, no one advocates returning to the space race of old, when competition between the U.S. and Russia kept engineers sharp but costs high. The front-page images of Linenger and Tsibliyev taking their space walk last week acted as a tonic for those bent on keeping the East-West collaboration alive. If such orbital summits are to continue, however, all the participants are going to have to learn to pay their own way.

--Reported by Andrew Meier/Moscow and Dick Thompson/Washington

With reporting by ANDREW MEIER/MOSCOW AND DICK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON