[FPSPACE] Padalka, Budarin named to Stand-By Mir Rescue Crew

[JamesOberg@aol.com]

Russia: Mir space station's emergency crew reshuffled
ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 1916 gmt 26 Dec 00
    Moscow, 26 December: An interdepartmental commission for assigning 
cosmonauts for space missions has unexpectedly changed an emergency crew that 
may go to the Mir orbiting station in case serious problems occur during its 
controlled descent from the orbit.
    Ex-commander of the emergency crew Salizhan Sharipov has told ITAR-TASS 
that the crew is now made of Gennadiy Padalka (commander) and Nikolay Budarin 
(flight engineer).
    Sharipov said he was very upset and did not know the reasons for the 
decision. "We had been training for more than six months to act in 
emergencies. Everything was all right, but the commission decided to change 
the crew," he remarked.
    Padalka and Budarin are all right, but they have not prepared for a 
flight, the more so an emergency flight, for the past few months, Sharipov 
said.
    Sharipov said he did not know when his former flight engineer, Pavel 
Vinogradov, and himself might go on a space mission. Their former back-ups, 
Talgat Musabayev and Yuriy Baturin, are expected to make a flight to the 
international space station.