French Space Agency astronaut Michel Tognini used the ham radio on board the shuttle Columbia to call the Russian Mir space station and chat with his French colleague Jean-Pierre Haignere and two Russian cosmonauts.

During the same conversation, Mir commander Viktor Afanasyev told Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a shuttle flight, that she was courageous. "I'd like to congratulate you from the bottom of my heart," he said in Russian.

Collins, who visited Mir on her last shuttle mission, thanked him in Russian.

Tognini, who spent two weeks on Mir in 1992, also chatted with Mir flight engineer Sergei Avdeyev, who holds the record for the most time spent in orbit - 714 days. The Mir crew is scheduled to return to Earth Aug. 28. The space station is to be mothballed, and if no additional funds can be found to continue its operation, eventually allowed to burn up re-entering the earth's atmosphere.