THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701190112
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON LENGTH: 31 lines
Astronaut John Blaha couldn't vote for President Clinton in November, but he's found a way to be part of the inauguration celebration - even from 240 miles above Earth.
The 54-year-old retired Air Force colonel, a 1960 graduate of Granby High School in Norfolk, videotaped a message Friday for Clinton from the space shuttle Atlantis. Blaha had lived on Mir since September and is to return to Earth aboard Atlantis this week.
In his message to be played Monday at an inaugural ball at the National Air and Space Museum, Blaha refers to a central Clinton campaign theme.
``We're now embarked on a new program - a bridge to the 21st century which President Clinton initiated 3 1/2 years ago, where we entered a cooperative agreement to build a new space station together with the Russians.
``In the interim, we have been using our space shuttle and the Russian Mir space station, which is 11 years old, to conduct joint space operations.''
Blaha is the third American to live on the Russian station.
Blaha said Americans and Russians are learning to work together through the space shuttle-Mir program. ``We're just getting a head start,'' he said.
Blaha, who in late October said he was ``all for'' Clinton, couldn't vote Nov. 5 because he missed the deadline to apply for an absentee ballot from his resident state of Texas. NASA was not able to e-mail the documents up to him in time.