Top space agency officials from Russia and the United States signed an agreement Monday in a new spirit of cooperation that may one day lead to a manned mission to Mars.


"It is quite natural that after the political confrontation of the two great powers was terminated, the atmosphere of confidence built up, and one of the fields of cooperation was in space", said Yury Koptev, general director of the Russian space agency.


In the first of the joint missions to begin in November 1993, a Russian will join an American space shuttle flight for a week.


Vladimir Titov, the Russian cosmonaut who set the record for human endurance in space after spending 366 days aloft from 1987-1988, begins training for his joint mission this month at the Johnson Space Center.


In 1995, an American astronaut will fly on the Russian Mir space station for three months.


At the conclusion of the flight, an American craft will dock in space with the Russian ship and bring the astronauts back to earth.


A second agreement also paved the way for an unmanned flight to Mars in 1994 on a Russian craft using some American equipment.