The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

A knife, Lazutkin thought: I’ve got to find a knife to cut the cables. While Foale remained inside the Soyuz, finishing off the PVC tube, Lazutkin soared back through the node and dived headfirst into base block, where he saw Tsibliyev poised to begin talking to the ground. Vaulting over the commander’s head, Lazutkin shot down the length of base block, past the dinner table, and into the mouth of Kvant. He remembered a large pair of scissors he had stowed alongside one of the panels, but when he reached the panel, he was heartsick: the scissors weren’t there. Then he saw a tiny, four-inch knife – “better to cut butter with than cables,” as Lazutkin remembered it. Normally he used the blade to peel the insulation off cables that needed to be rewired.

Lazutkin grabbed the knife and flew back down to the node. Sticking his upper body into Spektr, he grabbed a bundle of cables and instantly realized his plan wouldn’t work: the cables were too thick to be cut with his little blade. Each of the bundles was fitted into one of dozens of connectors that lined the inside of the hatch. Frantically Lazutkin began grabbing the cable bundles one after another, unscrewing their connections and tossing the loose ends aside, to float in the air.

After a moment Foale emerged from the Soyuz, where he had finally disconnected the PVC tube, just as Lazutkin finished ripping apart the first few cables. Foale was immediately surprised to see Lazutkin working at the mouth of Spektr. Still believing the leak was somewhere back in base block or Kvant, he was convinced that Lazutkin was isolating the wrong part of the station. If Foale was correct, sealing off Spektr would be a disastrous move. It would actually reduce the station’s air supply, thereby causing Mir’s remaining atmosphere to rush out of the breach even faster.

Foale remembered:

“I was still very concerned we were isolating the wrong place. I was not going to stop him physically – yet. But that was my next thought: Should I try and stop him?”

Burrough:

Instead, intimidated by the sheer fury with which Lazutkin was tearing at the cables, Foale floated by and watched. As Lazutkin rended each line, its loose end floated out into the node – “eighteen snakes floating around, like the head of Medusa,” Foale recalled. Foale began grabbing the loose lines and binding them with rubber bands he found in the node. Finally, he said something.

“Why are we closing off Spektr? It’s the wrong module to close off. If we’re gonna do a leak-isolation thing, we have to start with Kvant 2.”

Foale was about to say more, when Lazutkin cut him off.

“Michael,” he said, “I saw it hit Spektr.”

And with that Foale at last fathomed Lazutkin’s urgency: seal Spektr, and they save the station.