> The rescue of Salyut 7 has sometimes been compared to the ill-fated flight of Apollo 13: both missions involved dead and freezing spacecraft that put human li

> The rescue of Salyut 7 has sometimes been compared to the ill-fated flight of Apollo 13: both missions involved dead and freezing spacecraft that put human lives at risk, This risk was voluntary - since the power failures happened when nobody was occupying the station, the mission planners could have just let the station die. Apollo 13 (Or the fire on Mir) was not - as human lives were imminently at risk, until the problems could be repaired. Absolutely incredible work went into rescuing the craft in both situations. I can't imagine what it would be like to try to manually dock with an unresponsive, free-spinning space station.