``Silence was fan-tas-tic,'' he said. ``I had actually sort of wanted to experience that, and I got to experience that in space.'' Foale is astonished by his vivid recollections of that harrowing day and everything else about his bumpy 4 1/2-month Mir ride. ``It's almost like I'm right there,'' he said. ``I can almost imagine where the cables are in my face.''

For one sense, that of smell, the 41-year-old astrophysicist need not rely on memory. He inadvertently brought back Mir's memory inside two ziploc bags that had held family photos and a novel. ``When I open those up, the smell of Mir comes out,'' he said. Foale moved into Russia's old orbital home inMay 1997, three months after a serious fire had struck. No one imagined things could get worse. They could.

On June 25, 1997, a trash-filled cargo ship veered off course during a docking test and rammed the Spektr Laboratory module. As air seeped out of small, hidden holes, Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Lazutkin disconnected the cables snaking through the hatch and, within 10 minutes, had sealed off the depressurising lab. Commander Vasily Tsibliyev was on the radio with Russia's mission control, which insisted all three remain on board despite flight rules dictating they should flee in the attached Soyuz capsule.

Afraid they might suffocate from the exhaled carbon dioxide pooling around them in the stagnant air, Tsibliyev ordered his crew to find a place where they could watch one another whenever Mir flew into darkness. They gathered before a window. By then, four or five hours had passed since the crash. The Aurora Australis glittered below, and small meteorites flashed in the distance.

Foale triedto cheer up his ``shell-shocked'' commander, who was at the controls when the cargo ship crashed and feared he'd be blamed which he was. ``This is incredibly beautiful, Vasily,'' foale said, gazing outside. ``I know this has been a terrible day, but I'll always remember this particular moment.''``Yes, yes,'' Tsibliyev replied. ``It's been a terrible day.'' Foale laughed as he recalled the conversation in his top-floor office at Johnson Space Center, where he serves as assistant technical director. The astronaut-manager was part of a NASA contingent that travelled to Moscow this spring to discuss the fate of the 12-year-old Mir and delays in the international space station, the result of Russia's money crunch. To his surprise and satisfaction, the Russians agreed to send Mir plunging through the atmosphere by the end of 1999, once the international space station is inhabited.