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Nearly two decades after the United States and Russia first linked hands in orbit, NASA began a countdown Tuesday for a second joint mission to dock shuttle Atlantis with the Mir space station. “Our first objective is to learn to work with each other,” said Tommy Holloway, manager of NASA’s shuttle-Mir program. The second, he said, is to perform “very focused risk mitigation activities” to ensure both sides have done everything possible to prepare for an ambitious plan of six more joint missions. Atlantis was poised for liftoff Friday afternoon from Cape Canaveral, Fla., with five astronauts and two cosmonauts aboard.
