A quiet man gets the spotlight in space

The dream of space
In 1986, Tokarev decided to become a cosmonaut. "The situation was not so simple. I had to overcome some difficulties," he explained to Vis. "The local commander didn't want to see some of his experienced pilots leave his unit. To get the permission to get involved in the cosmonaut group was not very easy."

At the end of 1987 he passed medical screening for spaceflight candidates, and in May 1989 reported to Star City for a two-year training program as a Buran shuttle pilot. While in residence at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, he also enrolled in the nearby Gagarin Air Force Academy — "so I studied at two Gagarin training centers!" he joked.

However, by 1991, with Buran apparently on the verge of cancellation, he was transferred back into test pilot work at the Nitka air base in the Crimea, where he tested aircraft carrier flight operations. He was there when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine became independent. Suddenly, he was in a different country.

Tokarev returned to test pilot duty in Russia, then went back into space training in 1994 to replace a retiring pilot who was head of the moribund Russian Air Force group of Buran candidates — by then, an almost certainly dead-end duty, but one in which Tokarev saw opportunities.

Sure enough, two years later the Buran pilot group was officially disbanded. Every other pilot was reassigned, but Tokarev managed to hang onto an office at Star City until he was officially adopted by the cosmonaut program in 1997.

Because of his seniority, he was considered by some a candidate for commander of an early space station crew — but by then a half-dozen Mir pilot-cosmonauts, all younger than Tokarev, had solidified their hold on the initial crew assignments. Another assignment as commander of a short-term visiting crew was considered, but again he was pushed aside.

In February 1998, Tokarev accepted the position of cosmonaut representative in Houston, a six-month tour usually assigned to young trainees. And it was during that stint in Houston that his luck suddenly changed — or he helped change it, by his willingness to tackle new educational challenges. Astronaut Ed Lu recalled that Tokarev learned to speak English the same way he learned to play tennis: by dogged persistence and force of will.

Hope in Houston
William Readdy, a NASA astronaut who briefly visited the Mir space station in 1996, met Tokarev the next year in Houston. "He was pretty far back in the queue at Star City for a flight," he told MSNBC.com. "I think he could see the writing on the wall that [going to Houston and] learning English would ultimately help him along.  Many over there in Star City were not anxious to do either.”

Readdy added another insight into Tokarev’s incompatibility with the other pilots at the cosmonaut center. “Culturally, the Russian program did not favor flight test experience,” he explained. “In Houston, he was actually more in his element among test pilots flying jets and dealing with piloting the shuttle than he was in Star City.”

While in the United States, he flew T-38 jets and the Gulfstream Shuttle Training Aircraft, though not in the pilot’s seat. In the shuttle simulator, he took a turn as pilot and managed to get his virtual craft down safely on the first attempt — demonstrating that the years of Buran training had not been a total waste.

The door swings open at last
By the end of 1988, delays in the assembly of the international space station, and breakdowns in the Russian modules already in space, forced NASA to add additional shuttle flights. Because each visit to the not-yet-manned station required one Russian representative, Tokarev was on hand to step into the open slot. He hardly had to change offices in Houston and joined the STS-96 crew.

In May 1999, he was launched into space at last aboard a space shuttle — but not in one of the pilot seats. Instead, he flew as a passenger on the middeck.

Once he became a "real cosmonaut," his place in the queue for a station mission was assured. He began training for the mission back in Moscow in 2002, and commanded several backup crews before his turn came last year to fly as part of Expedition 12. Although his shipmate Bill McArthur was designated station commander, Tokarev was the Soyuz spacecraft commander. Because their capsule had to be moved twice to clear the way for follow-on dockings, Tokarev was the first Soyuz commander to fly dockings at all three of the station's Soyuz docking ports.

Transition time
Now Expedition 12 is giving way to Expedition 13. Tokarev is due to return to Earth this weekend, along with McArthur and short-term station visitor Marcos Pontes, the first Brazilian in space.

Back on the ground, Tokarev will have new challenges to consider. Ten years ago, even before being accepted into the cosmonaut program, he voiced interest in flying another manned spacecraft being designed for air launch. That project was halted due to lack of government funding, but in the last year a new avenue has appeared: space tourism.

Russia's future commercial rocketplanes will need talented, experienced test pilots, eager to learn and willing to take chances with uncertain projects. That's the kind of project where Valery Tokarev the human being — not the cosmonaut statistic — may well seek new successes.

James Oberg, space analyst for NBC News, spent 22 years at the Johnson Space Center as a Mission Control operator and an orbital designer. His most recent book is "Star-Crossed Orbits: Inside the U.S.-Russian Space Alliance."

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