Learning How to Live and Work with Russian and U.S. Cultures

I get the impression that each U.S. astronaut and his/her backup is being sent to Star City in Russia about a year or year and a half prior to liftoff. They are primarily immersed in the languages. From talking with Shannon Lucid, I've learned that they tend to focus on technical activities only. So she may learn all there is to know about how to ask about the Mir Space Station. But when it comes to having a regular conversation, apparently, they still haven't focused on that. I guess that was a problem with the mission that Norm Thagard was involved. So each time around, they're learning.

John Blaha had the challenge of having to work with his cosmonaut crew, who were people he didn't know very well. The cosmonauts went up in August, and John went up in September. The cosmonaut crew that he had been training with for the last year, and had gotten to know well, had to be replaced by their backups a few weeks prior to the launch, due to a health issue of one of the cosmonauts. So John was now faced with having to work with people he had hardly met, and having to overcome the human issues of living with people he really didn't know very well.

While I was in Moscow, we had the chance to have dinner one night with Dave Wolff, who is the crew member assigned to the NASA VII segment. His mission will start approximately in January of 1998. He had just arrived in Moscow, and was just getting his feet wet. He is more of the type that likes to get out into the crowd. He was just starting to figure out how he was going to get along in Russia. So each crew member brings their likes, dislikes and habits and tries to figure out how to best mesh with the Russian culture and the Russian crew members.