A VETERAN COMMANDER AS WORN DOWN AS HIS CRAFT

By Bruce W. Nelan

Star-crossed is too melodramatic a term for Colonel Vasily Tsibliyev, Mir's commander. Stressed out is probably more like it. Like the Mir spacecraft itself, Tsibliyev is worn down and in danger of falling apart. He has been aboard the aging space station since February and has had to cope with nonstop crises: a fire, breakdowns in oxygen and cooling systems, a collision with a cargo ship and last week a power failure. No wonder he's suffering from an irregular heartbeat and taking sedatives.

To make things worse, the Russian media have been pointing fingers at him as the cause of some of the accidents, and one of his bosses has labeled him a chronic complainer. Tsibliyev was guiding the cargo ship on June 25, when it bashed into the station's Spektr module, and some Russian commentators say he may have created the problem by entering the wrong numbers into a computer. At one point last week, ABC News reported that it was Tsibliyev who yanked the wrong plug and cut off the station's power. Mir flight director Vladimir Solovyov would not say who was to blame, but he obliquely cleared Tsibliyev by reporting that the commander was handling another task at the time.

At first, Russian space officials did not seem to take Tsibliyev's struggles seriously. "We've been hearing his complaints of the workload being too heavy since the first day of the flight," one of them told the Associated Press. They seem to be worrying more. It turns out Tsibliyev first noticed changes in his heartbeat in late June, right after the collision. Even though he was ordered to take it easy last week, he worked through the night to repair the power break. Reporters at mission control heard Igor Goncharov, the chief physician, speaking sternly to Tsibliyev: "Vasily, I insist that you have some rest. Vasily, you should eat regularly and normally."

At her home in Star City, the cosmonauts' training center, Tsibliyev's wife Larissa is more angry--at the Russian press--than worried. "I just wish they would report the truth," she told TIME. "Why are they picking on him? What kind of morals do our journalists have?" The space doctors, who give her regular reports, tell her Tsibliyev will be fine. He's no shirker, she says. "He's been a hard worker all his life. This speculation is all such nonsense."

Tsibliyev's service record bears her out. At 43, he's a veteran air force pilot, a graduate of the three-year Gagarin academy at Star City and a cosmonaut with 10 years' experience. In 1993 and 1994 he spent 197 days on the Mir station and completed five space walks. When he returned, he was awarded the country's highest honor: Hero of Russia. He also learned that his sister had died while he was aloft. In a melancholy coincidence, he will be told when he lands this time that his stepfather has died, news that has been kept from him. But another Hero medal, says his wife, is "out of the question now." What Tsibliyev can probably look forward to is an early and long retirement.

--By Bruce W. Nelan. Reported by Andrew Meier/Moscow

With reporting by ANDREW MEIER/MOSCOW