posted 06-01-2018 08:03 AM               

If I am not mistaken, John Blaha was the only NASA pilot-astronaut (as opposed to a mission specialist) to stay on the Mir space station. Is that correct?

Furthermore, Blaha flew on the shuttle six times — twice as a pilot (STS-29 and STS-33) and twice as a commander (STS-43 and STS-58), and finally, twice as a mission specialist (STS-79 and STS-81), which gives him singular status as the only astronaut to have ever held three different positions in the shuttle program. Is this correct?

However, his status as a mission Specialist is merely a technicality I believe. He was ferried to the Mir space station aboard STS-81 which made him a passenger in effect aboard the shuttle.

As for Blaha's STS-79 mission, I am not sure why he was a mission specialist on this flight. This mission docked with the Mir space station but Blaha did not remain onboard the station as far as I know. I assume the reason that Blaha was included on this flight was in preparation for his STS-81/Mir mission. Is this correct?

posted 06-01-2018 08:16 AM               

But Blaha is not the only astronaut to serve as commander, pilot and mission specialist during the shuttle program. As noted here, Steve Nagel, Charlie Precourt, Ken Cockrell, Frank Culbertson and Ken Bowersox did the same.

Blaha launched to Mir on STS-79 and landed from the space station on STS-81, hence his mission specialist role on both flights.

As for Blaha's assignment to Mir, it was his desire to go. As he explains in his oral history:

What made you decide to pursue the route to the Mir?

That actually started in 1991. In 1991, October, Brenda [his wife] and I went to an Association of Space Explorers Conference in Berlin — that was our first one — and there we ran into a number of cosmonauts, not that I spoke any Russian, but through interpreters talked to them a little bit.

I saw a video at the end of the conference on the Mir Space Station that some Russians showed those who wanted to look at it. It wasn't even a formal part of the program at the conference. I saw that and I remember I came back — I think I saw Richard Truly in November. He was the NASA administrator at the time. I said, "Dick, I can't believe that we keep talking about building a space station. There's a real one up in orbit that the Russians have. Why don't we work some sort of exchange where we'd fly some Russians on the shuttle, and we would fly some Americans on their space station? Wouldn't that help us get some understanding of a space station and help us with our program?" So, for me, that idea started in October of '91.

And how did it evolve?

Eventually — well, I remember when Norm [Norman] Thagard was leaving Houston, and that was in January of '94, to head over to Star City to start training. I remember at an astronaut office meeting literally saying, because I also saw that Bonnie Dunbar was going, and at that time even Jerry Linenger had been told he was going to do that, remember even saying at an astronaut office meeting, "Aren't we let somebody other than just mission specialists do this? I mean, can't pilots also go fly on the Mir Space Station?" So I was even saying it then, and telling people I was interested.

I guess it was in July of '94 then that I was told that if I really wanted to do it, I could do it. I guess August of '94 then that's when NASA sent Shannon [Lucid] and I out to Monterey to start learning the Russian language, and then we were in the system.