 The Soyuz was chosen as the ISS lifeboat during the development of the International Space Station.The first NASA astronaut to launch on a Soyuz rocket was Norman Thagard, as part of the Shuttle-"Mir" program.Launching on March 14, 1995 on Soyuz TM-21, he visited the "Mir" however he returned to Earth on the Space Shuttle mission STS-71.