Outer space exploration is typically considered in the context of geopolitical militarized competition, a phenomenon known as the ‘space race’. Less attention has been given to partnership projects between the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States – the central space race antagonists – that had already begun in the 1970s with the short-term Soyuz/Apollo initiative and continued in the 1990s via collaboration around long-duration space missions. The current study focuses on the Russian-American Mir/Shuttle program (1994–1998). With the help of critical discourse analysis, I examine the experiences and representations of interpersonal interactions that emerged in the framework of the Mir/Shuttle program, looking at the ways in which dominant value systems, the materiality of organizational structures and the embodied sense of existential vulnerability might shape the space flyer’s perception of the objectives, realities and outcomes of this cross-national collaboration.