On 24 February 1997, Jerry Linenger and his five crewmates faced a danger they hoped they’d never meet: a fire aboard their space station, which, at present, was hundreds of kilometres above the surface of Earth.
The blaze began shortly after dinner, when Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Lazutkin activated a solid-fuel oxygen generator designed to boost the air supply while the Mir station – Russia’s flagship space station at the time – was hosting more crew than usual.
The generator clicked on, ignited, and proceeded to spew a three-foot jet flame and sparks across the module. The station quickly filled with thick, dark smoke. The only evacuation route? Blocked by the flame itself.
Immediately, the crew sprang into action, donning oxygen masks and getting to work battling the flames with fire extinguishers. A tense 14 minutes later, the fire was finally out; the crew was safe. Yet it would be hours before the smoke was fully cleared from the station’s air, and far longer before those on the ground knew the extent of what had happened.
In a conversation with BBC Science Focus, astronaut Linenger recalls how he survived one of the worst accidents in the history of spaceflight, and the lessons he wants to pass on to the next generation heading for the stars.
SF: What was it like going through such a dramatic event while in space? How did you feel at the time?
JL: I guess it is a nightmare scenario. No place to go, no place to run. People talk about claustrophobic feelings – I never had that. They screen for that and make sure you don’t have that weakness.
But I’ll tell you, when there’s a fire and you’ve got flames two or three feet in length with a blowtorch intensity, and then smoke just enveloping that whole space station – I’ve never seen smoke spread like that before. You feel you have to keep talking to yourself to stay calm, basically.
It’s called the worst fire ever to happen in space – I think that headline is still true to this day.
One thing I will say is I understood how fast things can turn. One moment, things are all going in a routine fashion, the next, it’s life and death right in your face.
SF: Battling the fire is one thing, but the smoke is just as dangerous. How long did it take for things to clear up?
JL: The Russians said there was an incredible filtration system on board, but that wasn’t the case. We had a water-based fire extinguisher. So that pretty much vaporised the smoke.
Picture a smoky, humid atmosphere; when we go to the dark side of the Earth, the hull gets very cold, and on that cold hull the water just condensed – along with the smoke and everything.
So it wasn’t any fantastic life support or filtration system. It was really the condensation of that air mixture hitting the cold hull, which is actually a huge problem. We had that problem throughout our time there because you don’t want free water on the walls of your space station with all the electronic gear and the possibility of corrosion problems.
We then spent the next 24 hours using old, sweaty clothing to mop up all the water that was black and filled with smoke from the fire. And that’s how we cleaned the air.
In answer to the question, it was probably a day or so before we were able to clean things out. But the respirators ran out of oxygen, maybe 45 minutes to an hour after the fire, and we were able to take our masks off and breathe. It was still smoky, but it was breathable, probably after an hour.
SF: Is it very different going through something like that up there compared with on Earth?
JL: Yeah, it’s a completely different world up there. It’s very hard to imagine, to be honest with you.
Time, for instance, is meaningless up there. 24 hours in a day is an Earth-centric concept; it has nothing to do with the reality of what time really is. When you’re going through day-night, day-night, 15 times a day, you realise that 24 hours is just an artificial construct. Even your fundamental sense of time is altered.
Up and down are altered, too – as is your sense of space, of volume versus floor and ceiling, wall versus wall. It’s all totally different.
I think the surprising thing is just how much brainpower and hard work it takes to stay focused throughout the day, because you have to think through every little thing you do. It’s not automatic anymore – not like it’s been for the last forty years of your life. Everything’s different, and you have to concentrate on everything.
SF: Why do you think the severity of the fire was downplayed by NASA and the Russian space agency?
JL: I think it was the Russians. You have to remember that we basically had no communication with Mission Control in Houston – everything went through Mission Control in Moscow. We had broken satellites, so we could only talk to Moscow when we were directly over the top of it.
They had a lot of discipline there. As I mentioned earlier, this was the last segment of their space programme, and they wanted to keep it alive at all costs – and to keep the US involved at all costs. So, if there was any negative news about the space station, they wanted to suppress it. And the old Russian system, as we still see to this day, is very good at twisting the truth and suppressing bad information.
Right off the bat, it was: “Don’t say anything to the ground. Keep quiet. The ground doesn’t want to hear about it.” They were putting out some story – I had no idea what it was at the time, but it was absurd in retrospect. When we got back to Earth, we learned they’d said it was like a small cigarette fire and everything was fine. It was a major fire. We survived by the skin of our teeth. If that flame had pointed toward the hull, we’d have had rapid decompression, quick suffocation, and we’d all be dead.
If the respirators hadn’t worked, or if the flame had burned just a little longer, we wouldn’t have had breathable oxygen.
Let me clarify, though: the people I was up there with, the Russian cosmonauts, were fantastic. I trusted them with my life. But the system down on the planet was a mess then, and it still is. You have to take any official account with a grain of salt. And, of course, another tactic is to denigrate the messenger – the person telling the real story once they get back.
SF: What is your advice to this new generation of people who are about to experience the wonders (and dangers) of space?
JL: You have to realise you are privileged to have that opportunity and just make the best of every second up there. Give it everything you have.
I’m an old guy now, looking back on it, and I’m proud of what I did. I think I gave it my all. I have no regrets. I’m glad I’m alive here on the planet – wasn’t sure that was going to be the case.
But, you know, just give it 1,000 per cent because you are very, very lucky. You're very blessed. You're just fortunate that you're one of the people who get to go up into space.
Now, the one thing I will say along those lines is I think we need different names for astronauts at this point. It's a whole different thing to go up into space and come down and go ‘Yahoo’, sing a song and take a picture than to do what I did.
On Mir, if I were with tourists on that flight, I would not be talking to you. There's no doubt in my mind, there is no way I would have survived my time on Mir.
Professional astronauts, like old test pilots, don’t panic. I trusted my crewmates – one was a pilot, the other a military engineer – and I trusted them. It was three people with the right skill sets, able to push through when things are not going well. When things go well, no problem, but if things start going badly, I want a professional next to me who’s had life experiences in tight situations.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Want to learn more about Jerry Linenger’s experience of fighting fires in space? His and many more stories are told in a new docu-series, Once Upon a Time in Space, from Bafta-winning director James Bluemel. All four episodes of the series are available now to stream on BBC iPlayer.
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