A new book by a French astronomer created a sensation a month ago when folks discovered he wrote that NASA studied the feasibility of 10 sex positions in space during a space shuttle mission in 1996.

Kohler relates the near catastrophe that occurred in 1997 when fire broke out aboard the station and the later collision between Mir and the space freighter Progress. Both times, Mir's crew prepared to abandon the station but decided to remain aboard when danger risk seemed to have diminished.

And in a post-mission news conference after the 1997 collision between Progress and Mir, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin publicly accused Vassili Tsibliev, Mir's captain, of causing the accident. The initial inquiry board held him and his second-in-command Alexandre Lazoutkine entirely responsible.

But Tsibliev refused to take the fall and lashed out at the press: "If we have had so many problems aboard Mir, most of them originate from the ground," he said. "All of this is linked to the economic situation, the corruption and to our miserable lives aboard the station. Even the equipment that we need to live aboard the station and that we have requested...doesn't exist. This is because the factories no longer operate."

A final report took a 180-degree turn, blaming the collision on "an unlucky set of circumstances".

Tsibliev and the other Russian astronauts aboard were given parcels of land, portable phones and medals for services to the motherland.

But extreme events aboard the station occur infrequently. Though Kohler stresses that there is little time for leisure aboard Mir, the time factor of long missions is a change to the relentless work schedule aboard the U.S. shuttle.

"The big advantage during missions aboard Mir is that there is more time...life aboard the shuttle is more hectic because time is limited," Kohler says, citing the experience of German astronaut Ulf Merbold who flew on both vessels.

Aboard Mir the atmosphere is more relaxed, since experiments can usually be rescheduled if other events take priority.

For Merbold -- though the Russian crews seem to be very busy -- in reality they don't have all that much research to carry out.

Kohler cites another German astronaut Thomas Reiter as stating that maintenance aboard the station represents 40 percent of the workday. Others say it represents over half, while Russian authorities claim maintenance accounts for a mere 15 percent of the workload.

Though extensive, Kohler's account of station-board events is not as moving as what he describes occurring on Earth. There is a lot of routine on Mir.

Kohler's book also ventures into one of the "neighborhoods" key to the growth of Mir as he describes the political changes in Russia that transformed the secretive, yet prestigious Stalinist atmosphere of the Baikonur Space Center into what is today -- a pitiful shadow of its former self.

Strapped for cash, what was unthinkable during the Brezhnev years became necessary -- close cooperation with Western nations and their astronauts.

Kohler scathingly describes the changes at the Baikonur launch facility.

"Today the situation has completely degraded," he writes. "The Russian and Kazakh governments are regularly at odds over the rights to use the 'Cosmodrome,' now located in independent Kazakhstan. The Russians behave as [if still] in conquered territory where they have done what they pleased for more than 30 years."

The Soviet-era discipline has declined into Third-World chaos. In the nearby town of Leninsk, used to house space center workers, cases of hepatitis, gastroenteritis and skin diseases linked to declining hygiene have become daily occurrences.

The town's crime rate has skyrocketed. Russian army officers houses are frequently burglarized. Some 2,000 abandoned apartments have been looted. Entire districts are boarded up to prevent squatters.

Kohler recalls a February 1992 mutiny of 2,000 Russian soldiers that lasted for three days and led to four deaths, including two officers when the mutineers set fire to a barracks.

Kohler pulls no punches when it comes to France's ongoing battle between its current government --hostile to piloted spaceflight -- and France's astronaut corps that has difficulty keeping quiet over their distaste for France's recently fired minister responsible for space Claude Allegre.

Kohler quotes Allegre's vehement disdain for France's own astronauts. "[They] go into space for their own pleasure and go into orbit to get rich." Though most French astronauts have written books on their experiences and are paid for lectures, a French tax inquiry has revealed no irregularities among their astronaut corps.

Of course one must revisit the chapter titled "Cosmic Love", in which Kohler is unable to confirm whether astronauts have had sexual relations in space.

Reticence on the part of national space agencies to answer this question had led only toward extensive speculation. Only former NASA physician Patricia Santy has said publicly that sexual relations could have occurred in space.

Kohler speculates that the most likely case would have been aboard the U.S. space shuttle when the couple Jan Davis and Mark Lee flew on the same flight in 1989.

Kohler's interest is neither vulgar nor voyeuristic. He argues that on future long-term space missions that may last years, sex must be possible for the emotional well-being of space crews.