Editing Shuttle–Mir program (section)

===Increments===
[[Image:Shuttle-Mir Astronauts.jpg|thumb|The seven American astronauts who carried out long-duration Increments on ''Mir''|alt=A portrait of six men and one woman, arranged in two rows, four sitting at the front and three standing at the back. They are each wearing tan trousers and a blue polo shirt with a patch and their name on it, and the US and NASA flags are visible in the background.]]
In addition to the flights of the Shuttle to ''Mir'', Phase One also featured seven "Increments" aboard the station, long-duration flights aboard ''Mir'' by American astronauts. The seven astronauts who took part in the Increments, [[Norman Thagard]], [[Shannon Lucid]], [[John Blaha]], [[Jerry Linenger]], [[Michael Foale]], [[David Wolf (astronaut)|David Wolf]] and [[Andy Thomas|Andrew Thomas]], were each flown in turn to [[Star City, Russia|Star City]], [[Russia]], to undergo training in various aspects of the operation of ''Mir'' and the [[Soyuz spacecraft]] used for transport to and from the Station. The astronauts also received practice in carrying out [[spacewalks]] outside ''Mir'' and lessons in the [[Russian language]], which would be used throughout their missions to talk with the other cosmonauts aboard the station and Mission Control in Russia, the [[Mission Control Center#RKA Mission Control Center|TsUP]].<ref name="OffPlanet"/>

During their expeditions aboard ''Mir'', the astronauts carried out various experiments, including growth of crops and crystals, and took hundreds of photographs of the [[Earth]]. They also assisted in the maintenance and repair of the aging station, following various incidents with fires, collisions, power losses, uncontrolled spins and toxic leaks. In all, the American astronauts would spend almost a thousand days aboard ''Mir'', allowing NASA to learn a great deal about long-duration spaceflight, particularly in the areas of astronaut psychology and how best to arrange experiment schedules for crews aboard space stations.<ref name="Dragonfly">{{cite book|author=Bryan Burrough|date=January 7, 1998|title = Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis Aboard Mir|place=London, UK|publisher = Fourth Estate Ltd.|isbn=978-1-84115-087-1|id= {{ASIN|1841150878|country=uk}}}}</ref><ref name="OffPlanet">{{cite book|last=Linenger|first=Jerry|author-link = Jerry Linenger|date=January 1, 2001|title=Off the Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard the Space Station Mir|url=https://archive.org/details/offplanetsurvivi00line|url-access=registration|place=New York, USA|publisher=McGraw-Hill|isbn=978-0-07-137230-5|id= {{ASIN|007137230X|country=uk}}}}</ref>