His five space shuttle flights include a record 14-day life-science research mission on the space shuttle Columbia (October–November 1993), regarded by NASA as its most successful and efficient Spacelab flight. During the mission, the seven crew members performed medical experiments on themselves. In September 1996, the space shuttle Atlantis took Blaha to the Mir space station, where he stayed for four months. He was selected as an astronaut in 1980 and left NASA in 1997.