In 1997 Michael Foale was the American astronaut on board the Russian
space station Mir at the time of a failed docking attempt with an unmanned
Progress supply ship. The supply ship collided with Mir, punching a hole in
one of the modules of Mir, damaging a number of the solar panels, and
inducing a tumbling motion that prevented the remaining solar panels from
pointing toward the sun. The result was that the air pressure began to
decline precipitously, and after a period of time all electric power was
lost. By sealing off the punctured module, the crew was able to restore the
required air pressure, but the tumbling motion 
seemed a more intractable
problem. Michael Foale proposed using the thrusters on an attached Soyuz
vehicle that served as an emergency evacuation "life boat" and had an
independent power supply. The problem was how to use those thrusters to
transform the tumbling motion into a regular spin about an axis that would
keep the undamaged solar panel facing in the direction of the sun, and thus
restore electricity to the station.
In this DVD, Michael Foale provides his personal account of the experience, and explains the mathematical methods involved in rescuing Mir from what would almost certainly have been its demise had they been forced to evacuate and leave it tumbling without power until it burned up re-entering the earth's atmosphere.
Production of the DVD is made possible by support from the Clay Mathematics Institute, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics.
A limited number of complimentary copies of The Right Spin are available upon request at mam-dvd at ams.org.
About Michael Foale: Michael Foale studied at the University of Cambridge, Queens' College. He received a bachelor of arts in Physics, Natural Science Tripos, with 1st class honors, and completed his doctorate in Laboratory Astrophysics in 1982. He was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1987. He was on the first space shuttle flight to rendezvous with Mir, and returned in 1997 for a 4½-month stay aboard Mir, during which time he dealt with the emergency resulting from the collision with the Progress supply ship. In 1999 he engaged in a space walk as part of the mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. Michael Foale currently holds the U.S. record for time spent in space, having spent over a year of his life in outer space.