RENDEZVOUS FOR OLD RIVALS

By Dick Thompson

DR. NORMAN THAGARD HAD GONE into space four times before, but this mission was like none of his past adventures. Instead of preparing for launch on the balmy shores of Cape Canaveral, the Florida native faced the 18[degrees]F chill of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. When he chatted with crew mates, he spoke the language not of Neil Armstrong but of Yuri Gagarin. And when he tried to follow the American astronauts' ritual of eating a piece of cake before launch, the Russian flight doctors said nyet. Instead, Thagard and his fellow crew members, cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennady Strekalov, carried out a Russian tradition: they urinated on the tires of the bus that had brought them to the launch pad.

When the time came for blast-off, there was no big clock ticking off a countdown--just a deep voice that suddenly said, "Zazhiganiye [ignition]." As the white Soyuz rocket soared up over the brown Kazakh desert, it flew into a new era of space exploration, transforming one of the 20th century's fiercest rivalries into a partnership for the 21st century. Thagard, 51, became the first American to be shot into space aboard a Russian launcher. And after a two-day ride on the Soyuz, the physician-astronaut became the first American to take up residence in the Mir space station, where he will study the effects of lengthy space flight on the human body. Thagard is scheduled to stay aboard Mir for three months, which will be the longest time an American has spent in orbit, but that won't impress Valery Polyakov; the Lou Gehrig of cosmonauts will finally get to leave Mir and return to earth this week after a record-breaking 440 days in space.

In June comes the grand finale of Thagard's mission: for the first time ever, a U.S. shuttle will dock with Mir, picking up the astronaut and his two Russian colleagues and making them the first people to leave earth on one country's rocket and return home on the craft of another. The docking and six similar missions planned for the next two years are just warm-ups for the space industry's version of the Super Bowl. Between 1997 and 2002, the Russians and the Americans, with help from the European Space Agency, Canada and Japan, intend to build an international space station, the $40 billion Alpha. The elaborate station is to be assembled in orbit, and the purpose of the joint shuttle-Mir missions is to develop techniques that will enable spacewalkers to become a construction crew. Said Thagard: "Mir is a test bed, a proving ground, a place for us to work out all the bugs and kinks."

Both space programs have had their share of bugs and kinks lately, and Russia's effort shows signs of the country's post-Soviet economic chaos. Mir's cosmonauts have occasionally run low on spare parts and even food because launches of supply rockets have been delayed or canceled.

All that was forgotten, though, when the Soyuz had its triumphant rendezvous with Mir. Entering his new home, Thagard got a welcoming kiss from cosmonaut Elena Kondakova and a traditional Russian gift of bread and salt. Back at the cosmonaut training center near Moscow, Thagard's wife Kirby and three sons had already celebrated. As their hero made history, they ate the cake he wasn't allowed to touch before launch.

--Reported by Jerry Hannifin/Washington and Terence Nelan/Baikonur

With reporting by JERRY HANNIFIN/WASHINGTON AND TERENCE NELAN/BAIKONUR