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Space

Mir Reactivation Mission to Launch Monday 98

Posted by emmett from the i'll-take-two-tickets-please dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "According to this article in Aerotech News and Review as well as information on the Space Frontier Foundation web site, a mission to reactivate Mir for commercial purposes is scheduled to launch April 3rd or 4th and dock with Mir on the 6th. The mission is being launched by Holland-based MirCorp in preparation for scientific experiment, space-tourism, and in-orbit advertising."
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Mir Reactivation Mission to Launch Monday More

Mir Reactivation Mission to Launch Monday

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  • Yeah, $50,000 wouldn't even cover the cost of fuel to get your mass into orbit, much less anything else.

  • $50,000 would be an unbelievable bargain. Try more like $25 million. Also, I think I heard that the movie plans went down the toilet. I can't be sure though.
  • Unfortunetely it would cost about $450 billion, according to NASA. And for all the expense, and though it would take 30 years to accomplish, it wouldn't actually get much done on Mars.

    If you haven't read the book by Zubrin, I'd highly recommend it.
  • That is an excellent April Fools joke. That really had me going, especially since it was coordinated between the two sites. Great work, guys.
  • That 18 million is the total cost Mircorp paid for the soyuz and progress vehicles. However, NASA had already paid some money for those vehicles because they were supposed to be used to deorbit MIR. Again, if you want to argue either side of the issue, head on over to sci.space.policy. I agree the shuttle's a lousy vehicle, but I doubt a soyuz cost that little in real life.
  • BTW, I just found an interesting figure on the net about that 18 million; 18 million dollars is what Mircorp got charged by the Russians for three Progress or Soyuz capsules; they charge NASA 65 million for _one_ Progress or Soyuz. This seems to further bolster the argument that the Soyuz/Progress were a couple originally meant for use at ISS (and paid for by NASA) but then reassigned for the task of deorbiting Mir, before being sold...
  • See also Getaway to Club Mir [slashdot.org], posted January 15.
  • Anyone but me read SF here?
    The thought that someone a few millenia from now should rediscover satellites, and divine a manner to communicate with them gives me a huge boner!
    If they are strictly solar powered, they should *not* be taken down. Let them be hacked! Let them be commandeered! GPL the software that makes them run!
    They are a resource that we all can use! For mankind's benefit!
    Burning them up would be truly obscene. Offer them up to the geek world first. We'll find a use for them!
  • This is great! You could add: risk of FIRE in the
    human quarters!
  • The way the International Space Station (ISS) has been going, makes me wonder what its' future looks like! NASA has been (still is) pumping money to the Russian Government for years (2?)! Delays, overruns, "well lets deploy the module without the
    debris shields, put 'em on later," read more cost!

    But now it looks like a couple of cosmonauts will be heading up, NO PROBLEM!

    I won't be surprised when ISS hardware is docked to mir.

    "Off soapbox: submit"

  • Hail Discordia!
  • Thanks for the 411, I wasn't aware of that.
  • Challenger was lost because of the seal between the shuttle and the external fuel tank leaked. No SRBs involved.
  • "Outer Space bungee jumping"

    Oh, I can see it now. Open the hatch, jump out, and....er...float....wow, exciting...Well, I suppose you could stay out there until your orbit decayed, but then there's the heat of re-entry....
  • Where do you get the 2 million lbs of thrust figure? I've never seen that before. The Rogers report says that the flame penetrated or weakened the external tank structure causing breakup of the airframe by aerodynamic forces.

    You're just plain wrong about the 2 million lbs of thrust. The fuel burned off, it didn't explode.

  • Obviously you have no idea who I am. You should bow down to me, because I have a truly open mind. You're probably the last person posting, and I'm probably the last person with an open mind. That doesn't mean I don't criticise, but it does mean that I can acknowlege error.

    You have shown me sufficient evidence that you know what you're talking about, and so I'll say for the record, I was wrong.

    But if I check the book and I find out I was not wrong, you should make sure to read about it here in this thread. :-)
  • >would you have replied if I hadn't been so snide?

    Probably it would have slipped my mind somehow...

    You can find articles you wrote and see how many people responded by going to your user page. That's how I keep up with threads.
  • I'm looking foward to the concept of space tourism. I've always wanted to travel into space. I have a question for everyone. The mir station isn't that big to do all the things they say in the article. "Industrial production and scientific experimentation to space tourism and in-orbit advertising" Can the Station have room for all that at the same time. And also with all that going on is that station safe for tourist? I seem to remember them doing several patch jobs on it just to keep it running.
  • Actually, the shuttle isn't FAA certified because traditional FAA certification rules couldn't possibly apply to the shuttle since it would require things of no practical use on a spacecraft and not require things that are of a great deal of practical use. So, rather than have to come up with a whole new shuttle certification system that would almost certainly no longer be valid as soon as some new spacecraft design as put into use (and remember, this is back when we still thought we'd only be using the shuttle for a few years until something better came along), they classified it as a non-atmospheric vehicle. In other words: not a plane. Hence, the FAA has no control over it or it's safety specs.

    And as for there being no abort option between SRB ignition and SRB seperation... no crap einstein, you're sitting on top of a contiual explosion. Space is dangerous, trying to make every second of the mission 'safe' is what has led to most of the space-exploration stagnation since the 70's. Back then people were willing to take a few chances.. they knew they were doing dangerous stuff but did it anyway so that they could be the ones to do it.

    I mean come on people.. you're riding in a tin can on top of tons and tons of exploding propellant moving at escape velocity. Trying to say that Any set of abort options makes it safe is insane.. it's an inherently dangerous situation.
    Dreamweaver
  • Oh yah, I forgot about Mission to Mars. By the time they got there the black guy had long dreads and a beard.

    I was just thinking along the same mentality of the idiots that go deep sea fishing, get caught up in a storm, and the Coast Guard has to go rescue them.

    I guess I should have read up on my Mir specs. =)
  • Am I to beleive that grits soak up water faster in your kitchen than the whole grit-eating world? Am I to understand the laws of physics do not apply in your kitchen? Or maybe they were magic grits... Mmmm.. magic grits..
  • ...company who bought the commercial rights to mir is named "Gold and Appel Transfers".
    Does anyone have a link to more info about this company? I did a quick web search last time the subject came up and found nothing.
  • You just gave me an idea. Outer space bungee jumping. The ultimate in extreme sports.

  • Apollo 1 (Score:1)

    by Rix ( 54095 )
    Didn't the Apollo 1 astronauts die in a simulation on the ground? That's stretching things a little bit. Would they still count as casualties if their houses burnt down?
    Cheers,

    Rick Kirkland
  • I don't understand it.. Mir is falling apart, very risky, and expensive to maintain. And how much profit are they really gonna make on each visit? Whereas Iridium takes what, a couple guys with telescopes and slide-rules to make sure the birds stay in the right orbits? You sure don't need much of an insurance policy with the thing, and I'm sure Iridium's user base could generate more money than a couple high-priced stays in the Mirtel 6. (We'll leave the oxygen on for ya.)
  • ...is that the company who bought the commercial rights to mir is named "Gold and Appel Transfers".

    DISCORDIANS....IN....SPACE....


    --
    "HORSE."

  • Iridium takes what, a couple guys with telescopes and slide-rules to make sure the birds stay in the right orbits?

    You obviously have not been reading much of the discussions about this subject. According to posts, supposedly from Iridium engineers, the satellite constellation needs constant monitoring and controlling from several control centers throughout the world, just to maintain the satellites in their proper orbits. Not to mention the countless gateways to the land based telephone system in order for the calls to be placed properly. So basically, Iridium can't make money for anyone, even if you got the satellites for free. Otherwise someone would step up and buy them.
  • I always thought Mir meant "duct tape". Thanks for setting me strait.

    --

  • However there was NEVER a REAL Communist society on this planet, since Communism is a utopia and can not be created, the people are too corrupt and power-hungry. What the former Soviet Union and the current China were and are still basically dictatorship societies with of socialistic nature.

    You must mean Communists countries, there have been many communist societies that flurished, they worked together and shared the wealth. in the 1830s? there were many in America, most of them were religious in nature, and had permanet celibacy. Its easy to see how they died. The people weren't oppressed, all working together, they died because america was becoming greedier, and less people joined these places.
    Also, Communism is a type of gov't and thus related to democracy not, capitalism, a market system.
  • NASA is run by a special interest: the scientists and the aerospace industry. Their interests include more scientific research and more money spent on spacecraft. That's really the entire purpose of NASA, isn't it? So, corruption and special interests are equally present in all areas of government, it's just a matter of how much that corruption is felt by the general population.

    If I read you right, you're saying "NASA is in the pocket of Big Business, but the goals of Big Business and NASA coincide, so it doesn't appear corrupt." I can partially buy this theory, given the symbiosis between NASA (and DoD in general) and the contractors such as Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing, etc. On the other hand, when I think of those companies, I think of them as producing fairly high-quality products without being big oppressive monsters like the members of the MPAA. What does it mean if an agency is in the pocket of a good corporation?

    For that matter, being heavily involved with a few large corps may not signify corruption. The FDA is pretty heavily intertwined with the big pharmaceutical companies, and those companies lobby like mad to get new stuff approved. However, I can't think of cases where the FDA allowed a known unsafe drug to go to market; contrarily, I can think of a couple cases where a drug was discovered to have some very rare side effect (only detectable once it's in wide circulation) and was promptly pulled.

    Similarly, I don't know that scientists can really count as a serious special interest, because they're not very unified and don't have a lot of money to spend. The voice of the Religious Right is pretty clear: censor everything and give us legislated "family values". What does the voice of the scientific community call for? Scientists may want more grants, but I don't see them bribing their Congresspeople to expand the funding of the NSF/NIH/DARPA/etc.

    Alik
  • Yes and no. The only reason that the ground escape system exists is if there is a problem with the SRBs. If there was a problem with the liquid propellant engines then they can be easily shut off (unlike the SRBs), this has happened twice in the shuttle's history. If there is a problem with the SRBs after they are lit the bolts will not explode, and the shuttle will stay on the launch pad, giving the crew a few seconds (maybe, hopefully) to move to the ground escape system, then everything goes to hell.

    As for the shuttle lifting almost instantaneously off the ground, that is not quite true either.

    Here is an example
    T + 2.46 seconds - SRBs ignite
    T + 3 seconds bolts explode - liftoff.

    However, if the computers detect a problem with the SRBs after ignition (T + 2.46 seconds), but before liftoff (T + 3 seconds), the bolts will not explode and that is when the ground escape system comes into use (because as I stated above, if the problem was with the liquid propelled, then they would simply shutoff and there would be no purpose for the ground escape system). The crew will have very little time to use this.

    You do bring up some good points though. I will definitely agree with you that the shuttle is unsafe, and most of these safety mechanisms will have little chance of working.

    Fis
  • >>>1. Sending up Russian Cosmonauts on the Space Shuttle, which they consider unsafe because there is no abort option for the entirety of the solid rocket booster burn (From liftoff to 2.5 minutes later, if anything goes wrong, everyone dies. No matter what.)

    Nope. You are wrong. There are actually two escape systems on the shuttle. The first is on the ground, in case something goes wrong with the solid rocket boosters, then there is a special escape cart that the astronauts can jump onto which will take them to an underground bunker. However, the effectiveness of this is in doubt because the astronauts would have to move pretty quickly to get onto it.

    Once they are in the air, if something goes wrong (and it is noticed by nasa), then the astronauts can parachute out of the shuttle. There is a pole that they can strap on to. However, there are a few problems with this escape mechanism as well; the astronauts may not be able to exit the shuttle in time and there is a good chance that they may hit the wing on the way out.

    I know there is doubt whether these systems will work, but there is a way to abort, albeit with little chance of escape, but they are there.

    Fis
  • In fact, YOU are wrong. The last time that "something went wrong with the solid rocket boosters" in NASA was the CHALLENGER, and they were NOT on the ground! That cart didn't save them, did it?
  • I've seen pictures of the inside of Mir, and I don't think I'd want to spend more than a couple of hours in that shoe box. Sure, taking a space flight would be incredibly cool, but actually living in Mir for a few days? I think I could find better things to do with my money.
  • So...

    What if Roblimo licked mah ballz while I had zero-G sex with Natalie Portman (naked and exhibiting an odd, granite-like behavior) floating in a capsule full of hot grits, like some twisted combination of a South Carolina greasepot hole-in-the-wall and the 32nd sequel to "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids"?

    Would I be leet then? OOoo, there's some lovely filth over here, Dennis...
  • Anyone else notice that Mircorp is being bankrolled by Gold & Appel Investments ?

    23?

  • I wonder whether this will take focus(and engineers) off of Russia's commitment to the International Space Station? Hopefully not!

    Probably not. But maybe the International Space States will come with some extra features, like fridges in all rooms, HBO, jacuzzi rooms, and, of course, an on-board gift shop. The kids need souvenirs, don't they ?
  • The movie will not be filmed. The russian actor was supposed to go up on this flight, and had trained extensively, but the backers of the film never came through on their side of the agreement and failed to pay Energia-RSA. That's why there are only two Cosmonauts launching instead of three. His seat will be holding a payload container filled with extra expendables, and there's talk of extending their mission by 15 days because of the lower requirement of air, food, etc.
  • Actually, I'm not wrong. My reference is the following book:

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/022685175 3/o/qid=954729295/sr=8-2/ref=aps_sr_b_1_2/ 102-0286493-5604034

    The title of the book is "The Challenger Launch Decision : Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at Nasa", written by Diane Vaughn. It includes the Rogers report as well as an in-depth analysis of the exact sequence of events. Another reference I used was the tape 'Challenger - Disaster and Investigation', prepared by the Data and Design Analysis Force. It documents the Task forces activities and findings. It provides forensics, technical explanations of the cause of the Challenger accident.

    The 2 million lbs of acceleration wasn't the result of an explosion, I never used that word. It was a result of the large burn-off of the LH^2 which imparted force on the top hemisphere of the LH^2 tank and intertank structure, neither of which were designed as load bearing structures and both of whose failure contributed to the aerodynamic breakup of the vehicle.

    Of course, since this Slashdot article is more then 5 hours old, I don't anticipate you bothering to acknowledge your error. Heck, I'm probably the last person posting!
  • No, I'm very sorry, but you remain incorrect. The ground-escape system is solely for escaping a pre-launch shuttle when something that cannot be safed (for instance, a hydrazine line failure or LOX/LH2 tank failure in the ET). The explosive bolts which hold the shuttle to the ground CANNOT hold the shuttle stack against the thrust of the SRBs.

    Once the SRBs light, the shuttle will tear itself off the pad if it must, but it will NOT stay down. An SRB failure is classified, once again, as a loss of vehicle & crew event. No ifs, ands or buts about it.

    Solid boosters have no business in manned ground to space operations. The Liquid Fly Back Boosters are what should have been built for the shuttle when the design was frozen, not SRBs. They have already been responsible for seven deaths.

    For more info on LFBB, check the following URL:

    http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/lfbb/i ndex.html

  • The problem with this logic is that you assume the space shuttle is safer in this regard then the previous launchers, both US and Soviet.

    Every single manned spacecraft ever put into orbit has had a capsule escape system, with the glaring exception of the space shuttle. The Mercury had it, the Saturn V had it, and the Soyuz launchers have them. They are the rockets in the tower that sticks on top of todays manned launchers, and in case of a launch vehicle failure at any stage up to orbit, the escape rocket can be fired, pulling the capsule up and off the launch vehicle and setting it down safely elsewhere.

    This even happened once during a Soyuz launch, and the crew was kept safe by having this as an option.

    The Space Shuttle is the first manned launch vehicle without an abort option, so don't try suggesting that it is any way safer then the Apollo or Gemini craft which came before it, at least not in regards to a launch abort.
  • Absolutely incorrect. The SRB was directly responsible for the incident. A seal in the bottom of the SRB failed, allowing hot gasses from inside the burning SRB to torch into the External Tank, rupturing the liquid hydrogen tank and igniting the fuel inside. The burning hydrogen accelerated the vehicle suddenly with an extra 2 million lbs of thrust, and the stress tore the ET and the SRBs free from the Challenger. An instant later, the Challenger, which was thrown free of the burning fuel, disintegrated because of aerodynamic stresses.
  • Whoops! Guess I should have given you the benefit of the doubt there. Of course, would you have replied if I hadn't been so snide? It's indeed an eternal paradox...

    OT, a good enhancement to the slashcode would be a feature which could e-mail someone when there was a response to a message they posted in a comments area. This would allow them to follow conversations without obsessively remembering to come back and do a text find on their name. Like I do....
  • Mir == World as well. This caused quite a bit of trouble at a UN meeting when Brezhnev (Khruchev? I can never remember which of the Soviets said what) said "Mi hotim mir" (the transliteration is horrible, sorry). "Mi hotim" means "we want" and "mir" can be either "peace" or "the world." I will leave the rest up to you :)
    -----
  • "Bring a pint of Cardassian Ale to my quarters immediately! I will see you in the ready room at Oh-eight-hundred where we will discuss IPO'ing this hunk of junk."
  • Oh great! So now I know how fast it is orbitting!
  • Have you looked into the Werner Von Braun Mars mission? He planned it during the 40's and 50's. It's pretty interesting. It's also much bigger than Zubrin's and uses nuclear propulsion and such. After all Von Braun designed the Saturn V, so you can imagine the scale of the things. Granted, it would be more expensive but it has a lower risk associated with it, I think, because there are several ships going together.
  • By the way the USSR failed basically because the US managed to bankrupt them by making them spend more and more money competing with the US. The USSR is basically a poor country with less resources than the US had at their disposal, so it's no wonder that the US won the cold war. The last straw was apparently SDI that Reagan has announced and the Russians had no resources to compete. Also, some former Russian politicians have said that they couldn't compete with the US in everything so they chose a few areas where they could compete (like Mir space station). Disclosure: My country used to be "communist" and USSR's puppet.
  • Yeah but I like it because it's so big. With today's technology it would probably be cheaper than that. I know it would still be too expensive and that is why it will probably never happen. But Zubrin doesn't do THAT much done either. It would take 30 years to accomplish with NASA's current budget yeah, but just imagine if the DoD fianaced it. Not that this would ever happen.
  • Iridium is 66 satellites plus a couple of spares. Managing that is hardly insignificant. Not to mention within five years the network would be useless unless you launch more satellites or if you don't mind losing coverage of part of the world. The GPS network which is using ideas developed in the '70's consists of 24 satellites plus some spares but has it's own facility dedicated to it (in Colorado I think). Iridium's 70 satellite's would be more complex to maintain.
  • The reason that you don't see the corruption as much in federal agencies is that they have more limited power. Corruption in the President could mean obtaining secret FBI files about his political opponents, whereas corruption in a NASA director might be spending a lot of money on a mission of dubious scientific value to study Europa because he thought the 2001 series was really cool. NASA is run by a special interest: the scientists and the aerospace industry. Their interests include more scientific research and more money spent on spacecraft. That's really the entire purpose of NASA, isn't it? So, corruption and special interests are equally present in all areas of government, it's just a matter of how much that corruption is felt by the general population.
  • The reason your stories were declined had to do with timing. You submitted the articles over a month ago. Slashdot has already run numerous articles on Mir becoming a hotel, long ago. Long before the time you submitted the news. But now that the launch is set to this Monday, the news is again pertinent. Sort of a follow-up. So just to set ya straight, no, ya didn't know about it before Slashdot did.

    signature smigmature
  • Speaking of space tourism, are they going to give a tour of all the friggin space junk that orbits the earth? I mean really. Don't you think they should address that first? It's dispicable that they won't clean that crap up.
  • The header of your statement: "Capitalism triumphs over Communism again"

    Then: "The MIR is going to succeed due to it's capitalist nature where the ISS is failing due to it's socialist funding." - clearly MIR is only now becoming capitalist, it was supposed to be burned this year.

    Then: "Built by communists at a huge cost, old and in need of repair and funding, the MIR is being rescued by capitalism." - built at a reasonable cost for a space station, cheaper than a carrier for example, and it's not being rescued it's being sold.

    Then: "Only communism is strong enough to get something like that going though.", ... , "Two of them are communist and the third did it through communist financial techniques." - So who the hell triumphs at this point?

    I believe this message is rather confused, I think what you mean to say that only in a capitalist society no one would pay for such a station but clearly the station is very useful for scientific purposes and the Socialist regime gets one and the Capitalist regime does not? I think you are mistaken if you call this a paradox. ISS is going to show how such an expensive enterprise as a space station could be built, maintained and used by many nations instead of just one.
  • BTW. Mir also means World.
    Forgot to mention that.
  • It's quite inconvenient, trust me. It requires a need for special rubber bands to hold the partners together and then you don't have much space to move in. On earth there is gravity that can do some work for you and hold you in positions together, in space there is nothing of a kind, just a little bit of gravity that wouldn't hold your water in a cup, now think about inconveniences with other types of liquids, the sweat etc.
    Now, I did not say that it all that bad, - give us just a little bit of gravity and here I come! Basically having sex on the Moon is easier than on a space station, there is some gravity so you can feel your partner at least and at the same time less power is required for taking the most unambiguous positions ever imagined and quite frankly impossible to implement on this planet.
  • As this page [tonet.pl] says (unfortunately for most of you - in Polish) that in fact ISS equipnent would be destined to sustain Mir, by Russian government decision od 20 January.
    At the same time "Russian scientists assure that at no means this would have any impact on ISS mission delay.".
    (Reminds me a bit some iron-courtin-times jokes about new findings by Soviet scientists).

    Anyway - the Zvezda module is said to be ready, it's just the problem with Proton rockets.
    On one discussion list someone said that the commercial use would be: space equipment production and repairs (incl. Mir itself ;-), pharmaceutical research, tourism and advertising.

    Perhaps we can expect some new Intel ads where guys dressed in those dumb suits would bring some life to dying space station ...

  • That's it exactly. It's not safe with all the blunders that have occured as Mir ages. Oops, the computers are down again. Oops, we ran into our own rocket. Oops.... So, I think we should support this for single reason. Let's all chip in and send up Gates. We know he won't come back. No need to renovate, send him now!
  • I was in Israel a few years ago and they had a advert for milk filmed on Mir.

    Picture a cosmonaut chasing a ball of milk round the capsule.

  • I also submitted this news a while ago(i think about a month ago), and I know that MIR will also be used to film a new Russian movie. I'm not sure of the name of the movie, since it's been a long time since I saw this information but I'm pretty positive it's a Russian movie.

    As Accpiter just said, a stay at the hotel will be pretty exepsive(I remember somewhere around $50,000 or so). I think you will go to MIR as a group of 7 or so, and stay there only 3 or 4 days. It's pretty expensive, but certainly worth it.

    If I had a Porsche, I'd sell it just to see the Earth from space :)

  • Wow, first Slashdot, now Mir tourism. What will come out of that place next?
  • FAA certifying the shuttle? That'd be hilarious :) Anyway, regarding the previous discussion about Soyuz vs. Shuttle and cost-effectiveness. Do you think that understaffed (and that's an easy term to use), rapidly declining facilities with most men NOT being paid anything or being paid with months' worth of delays, can produce a truly reliable vehicle? Just look at the Proton failures which are responsible for setting the ISS back a year and a half already. The investigation found out there had been debris in the combustion compartment of the booster and parts of the booster were not mated correctly! I know, the manned flight standards are higher, and space shuttle is not that much better, but still. I think what they're doing is very dangerous, and Mir should have been abandoned. They should focus on launching Zarya and building the rest of the ISS, not on turning Mir into a hotel.

    Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths
    He buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio

  • Yay! Finally someone gets it right with regards to econmoic systems not being governments systems
  • Should we all take a up collection and send Bill Gates into Space?

    What do you mean, you meant sending him into space without a rocket or a suit?

  • We will attempt to keep on schedule.

    A ticket does not represent a guaranty as to schedule or connections. Schedules may change because of

    • weather
    • mechanical difficulties
    • FAA
    • NASA
    • technical difficulties
    • bankruptcy
    • Attack by Death Star
    • Aliens
    • getting hit by irridium
    • Patent lawsuit by Spielberg Productions
    • because we feel like it
  • "Yes. But in actuality, we are now on the night-side, and there is really nothing to see. You'll have to wait 8 hours." actually you would only have to wait 45 minutes at the most.
  • You think that's funny, but if it were a big Golden Arches, I don't think anyone'd be laughing. Space advertisement scares me a lot. After scrawling posters onto the night sky, whats left? Engraving on the insides of eyelids? Daycare brainwashing? All this carp just to sell stupid products nobody needs.
  • Astronomers already have the neon glow of city lights (McD, etc.) in their way. How is this different? I don't share your optimism that a thing will be protected because it is a beautiful shared resource.

    We can look forward to explaining what stars looked like to our grandchildren.

  • Gee, I can't wait to see the "in-orbit advertising" gracing my night skies!

    Which recently funded .com will go first?
  • With Putin's election in Russia, there is a definite emphasis on activities that enhance Russian pride - be it through the continued pursuit of rebels in Chechnya, or through new efforts in space.

    One thing is obvious - Putin will not be engaging in activities in which Russia plays only a bit part. The moment Putin won the election, I wrote off any future cooperation in ISS-related activities. Putin is looking to bolster Russian pride, and ISS certainly isn't enhancing anyone's prestige in the US or Russia.

    That said, I am completely demoralized by the entire ISS experience. The cost overruns have been intolerable, and the level of achievement is dismal, even for a government project. Many ISS parts will need to be replaced before habitation can be initiated, simply due to the scheduling snafus thats have made ISS so late.

    Personally, I would like to see a new president lay down the law to NASA - get ISS working (fast), or it will suffer the fate or Iridium - brought back down.

    This approach might be healthier for NASA in the long-term anyway - since ISS was conceptualized, most of its intended purposes have been rendered unnecessary by improvements in terrestrial scientific testing and development. Also, ISS has not brought Russia and the US closer together, in fact, it has strained relations. Finally, ISS has not provided any return-on-investment to taxpayers - where I see return-on-investment being excitement, anticipation and wonderment (the moon missions provided this in spades).

    Unfortunately, ISS has turned out to be a failure.

  • There have been substantial rumors floating around for years regarding significant loss of life in the Soviet space program.

    The facts regarding Soviet safety are mostly dubious. You cannot draw a strict conclusion based on Soviet-era records.

  • Whatever (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As a big disappointment for some people on this forum, you can't pour hot grits down your pants in zero gravity. You can, however, pour hot grits all over the capsule but whether that is an intelligent thing to do is open to discussion.

  • Wow. (Score:2)

    by torpor ( 458 )
    That is totally bizaare. Excellent, actually.
  • After just finishing "Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin, and seeing that NASA has no will to be enthusiastic explorers of the red planet, I'm very glad to that private companies are going to put humans in space.

    I personally think the JFK-style mission Zubrin describes would be work best, but I also think the Gingrich plan could effect the same results.

    But I'll cross my fingers in the hope that whoever gets elected, Gore or Bush, would be willing to give space exploration a boost using the bully pulpit(though it doesn't look likely, neither of them has a spine).

    And where's the IPO for this? - I want in.
  • Several people are knocking the idea, without even mentioning that

    Hotel Mir --> Sex in Space.

    It seems like it would be about the *first* thing on a geek's mind. Hell, I didn't even see any trolls talking about it. Are there no hormones on this site today?

    --Lenny
  • During flight their record looks ok, but hundreds were killed in accidents on the ground including several launch pad explosions.

    But you do have to admire the fact that when they had problems on the Mir they hung on and fixed them. Whenever the shuttle has the slightest problem it simply returns to mother earth.


    ----
  • What makes you think NASA has any sort of rescue capability? It takes them months just to prep the shuttle for a mission, they couldn't very well say "Uh oh, they're in trouble, let's go!"

    This is why Mir always has at least one Soyuz craft docked at all times, so that the people on board can use it to take off if something bad happens.
  • a bad dream about orbital advertising the other night, I thought I'd share. I imagined enormous low orbit billboards floating merrily across the sky. Eventually the Earth's atmosphere became so cluttered with this huge billboards all light from the Sun was reflected back into space and instead of a nuclear winter we enjoyed an advertismal winter.
    "As I looked upwards into a cobalt heaven, looking for answers. I beheld a .com advertisement and all was well."
  • So Mir has been around since the mid 80's, was thought to be dead and was all but abandoned. Now they are going to revive it because they see it still has commercial viability.

    My only question is, will they call it "Mir: Millenium Edition" ?

  • What bothers me is that if there is some kind of systems failure or other emergency on Mir, I can only think of one agency in the world that could mount any kind of a rescue, and that's NASA. So the taxpayers of America get to pay for a multimillion dollar rescue operation. Mir is a decaying hunk of metal. Let it go down in a bright burst of orange and take its place in history.
  • An american company was charging $100,000 for a ride into orbit on a specially built space plane.

    By the year 2000.

    That just hit me. I should try looking up that webpage again.

    (Anyone else think the future would be more interesting?)

    Later
    Erik Z

  • just a quick note: check out sunday's userfriendly [userfriendly.org]

    //rdj
  • Holland, the country. Not Holland, Michigan.. Actually called The Netherlands. Holland is a mere 2 provinces. Not every place in the world is in the US, although there's lots of copied placenames..

    //rdj
  • Today they are a very impressive nation with huge resources but they have the same problem - corruption at all levels.

    You know, this could be describing the USA just as easily as China, and I think perhaps it could be applied to several other first-world nations as well. Corruption is not a feature of communism as much as it is one of bureaucracy, which both capitalist and communist governments tend towards.

    Interestingly, despite being part of said bureaucracy-laden government, I personally do not find NASA to be corrupt. It's not a lean, mean machine as some would like it to be, but it also isn't run by any special interest. In fact, when you get down to it, most Federal agencies are not corrupt. Some are doing nasty things (FBI, CIA, BATF, etc.) but it's in their mandate to Make America Safe. The corruption seems to mainly be in the Congress and President, which then direct their subordinates to do bad things. This is good: there is a maximum of 437 people to remove in order to restore the system.

    Alik

  • The first example of in-orbit advertising that I remember (other than country flags) is a movie teaser for Arnold Schwarzenegger's weak Last Action Hero, a huge poster affixed to the side of some payload.

    With the breakup of Iridium, though, come new possibilities.

    • squelch Endeavor Captain, ready to task Iridium #20 through #30.
      static Roger, Marketing Officer.

      squelch Iridium #20 and #21 away, flaring letter Lima over India.
      static Roger, Lima.

      squelch Iridium #22 away, flaring letter Indigo over Indonesia.
      static Roger, Indigo.

      squelch Iridium #23, #24, #25 away, flaring letter November over Hawaii.
      static Roger, November.

      squelch Iridium #26, #27, #28 away, flaring letter Uniform over Hawaii.
      static Roger, Uniform.

      squelch Iridium #29, #30 away, flaring letter X-Ray over California.
      static Roger, X-Ray.

      squelch Iridium #20 through #30 completed, Captain. Message Lima Indigo November Uniform X-Ray spelled in the sky over the Pacific.

      static Roger, orbit over Europe in fifteen minutes for another eleven Iridium satellites to spell LINUX there. Out.

    (In-Orbit Advertising =anagram>
    It is arriving on debt.)
  • I was amazed at the decorum surrounding America's first married couple on a shuttle mission.

    We know there's a Zero G Club, but we haven't been told by any reputable source!

    singing,

    • Home, Home on Lagrange, [swarthmore.edu]
      Where the space debris always collects.
      We possess, so it seems, two of man's greatest dreams:
      Solar power and zero-gee sex.
  • I think that this is a very cool step that MirCorp is taking. With all the money and man power it takes to get satellites and space stations in orbit, it would make more sense for commercial organizations to recycle unused satellites than spend more money on manufacturing and placing new ones. Ghetto
  • Sorry, but YOU are wrong. First, I said there is no abort/escape from LIFTOFF to about 2.5 minutes into the flight. This remains true, the ground escape system is not after the SRBs have lit off (the shuttle lifts off almost immedietely, and if a problem develops on the pad after SRB ignition, the vehicle and crew are lost). Also, the escape pole is NOT usable during the SRB burn.

    Here's an abort scenario which uses the escape pole:

    1. Liftoff
    2. SRB burnout/seperation
    3. Problem detected, too far for RTLS (return to landing site) and not far enough for TAL (transoceanic abort landing)
    4. Shuttle adds/subtracts as much delta-v as possible to get close to land for ease of astronaut recovery.
    5. Shuttle jettisons External Tank
    6. Shuttle energy management program is used by the pilot to set up an energy efficient glide.
    7. At around 30,000 feet the jump master prepares the door.
    8. Shortly after, the commander activates the autopilot
    9. The door is opened, pole extended.
    10. Everyone jumps in an orderly manner.
    11. Shuttle hits water and destroys itself. Hopefully the crew has landed safely w/ parachutes.

    There simply is no abort option between SRB ignition and SRB seperation. They are solid rocket motors, which means that anything that could turn them off would also destroy the orbiter (eg, you would actually need to blow open the seams on the SRB to stop them, which is what the range safety officer does. This would also destroy the orbiter.)

    You'll note that the shuttle is not certified by the FAA, 'cuzz it's very dangerous.
  • "Welcome to Hotel Mir, how may we help you today?"

    "Give me a room with a good view."

    "Well, that going to be hard. For safety reasons, none of the guest rooms have a portal. We do however have multiple viewcams that you can look rthrough by selecting channels 332 to 389 on the TiVo ..."

    "OK. Then any room will do right?"

    "Yes. But in actuality, we are now on the night-side, and there is really nothing to see. You'll have to wait 8 hours."

    "Then what can I do? Is there a casino or a bar someplace?"

    "Well due to space restraints, you can enjoy a tube of wine within the comforts of your own room, and you can always surf the web to a casino site ..."

    "WTF! Then what's the point of coming here? I might as well go back!"

    "OK. As you wish. That will be $500 thousand for the return trip ..."

  • Well, here you go, contradicting yourself here and there. So is it Capitalism over Communism or is it Communism over Capitalism? You go this way and that way and than this way back again.
    I would say that a capitalist society has a great incentive sending space stations up there since they need it for technological advancements and for the bottom line.
    However there was NEVER a REAL Communist society on this planet, since Communism is a utopia and can not be created, the people are too corrupt and power-hungry. What the former Soviet Union and the current China were and are still basically dictatorship societies with of socialistic nature.
    The former USSR could launch the space stations but did not care about its citizens beyond addressing very simple problems such as hunger, dwelling, medicine, studying and providing jobs. Of-course that does not sound too bad and it was not too bad for those people, the only problem was that it could not last forever. A uniform society was created, with almost equal possibilities and pretty good education but not enough room for self motivation, so the motivation was created artafficially by concentrating on the work getting done for the communist causes. Of-course people still had to work and many worked well but the final results, no matter how great could not benefit the working individual.
    Now the space exploration required huge investments and those were taken from the government sector, which basically collected all the profits of the working individuals. The state was very rich in that it could allow itself very expensive moves without thinking twice - a huge army, huge fleet, enormous spendings toward the defence system and the space exploration fell somewhere in between. The cold war was also an important factor, USSR had to beat America in whatever they could, they even had slogans: "To gain on and to go ahead of America" something of a kind.
    China has a totaliterian regime with little respect to individual rights, it's not hard to understand why - try manipulating 1.5 billion people.
    Today they are a very impressive nation with huge resources but they have the same problem - corruption at all levels.

    Comparing Capitalism to Communism is quite useless since there are no complete models to compare. Capitalism has a model that is easier to implement and maintain as the history has shown. The communism model only works in ant and bee colonies, with people it's too submissive.

    Maybe the next model to come is related to the evolution of our understanding of human sexuality and the evolution of human sexuality in itself together with advancement in technologies and will be presented by some new order of sexually oriented persons without any specific work related problems to solve? Anyway, I believe that our race is just a step toward the higher race of smart computers.
  • Well, Good. Though it is quite old (very old by space standards) this station may in fact appear to be usefull again after all. Too bad Russian economy is in such shambles, I was hoping for the new space station to take the place of the old one. Mir has survived something like 3 or 4 times the predicted life expectancy, I am sure its engineers have learned a lot during this time and could build something even more impressive if there were any money there.
  • I just hope there will not be any special-t-travel DISCOUNTS!
    -Yes sir, it's only 99,999.99 and for that extraordinary price you will become one of the few that can boast that they have gone to space. Share our magnificent bedrooms with a breathtaking view of the entire world. Enjoy our special tubed meals with your loved one for only 59,999,99 more. Walk in the open space with only a space suit between you and the unimaginable vastness of the surroundings for a little extra charge of 39,999.99 (insure yourself with our special-t-insurance, after all isn't your life worth a mere 29,999.99?) Enjoy a real human drama of the space travel - mini-asteroids, solar winds, gamma radiation - all this is included in the package FREE OF CHARGE!!!
    Just in case of a serious accident, buy yourself a landing module with life boats, axes, automatic weapon system (who knows where you'll land) and much much more for only 299,999.99! You can even keep the module after you land successfully in it!
    Our highly trained and very professional crue members will be at your disposal before start and after the landing.
    Bring home souvenirs, take a piece of the space with you (for a little extra, take a piece of the spaceship with you too!)
    We have a steady supply of alien monsters and if you want, a highly trained Russian professional astronaut will die trying to save you from an oxygen leak.
    So what are YOU waiting for?! Call us now at 1-800-spacetravel or visit our website at www.areyoustillalive.com
    [Legal notices:
    No pets allowed, no alcohol (unless specifically negotiated), no smoking (same). Children under 21 only if supervised by an adult.
    Special-t-travel space section takes no legal responsibility for any conceivable and inconceivable problems that may arise during the space travel. All sales are final, non-refundable, non-negotiable and completely transferable.
    Thank you very much for visiting our hotline, in case if you wish to order press 1.
  • I wonder whether this will take focus(and engineers) off of Russia's commitment to the International Space Station? Hopefully not! Not that the idea of a space hotel isn't very cool, I just seriously doubt anyone reading this would be able to afford it(and benefit from it). The ISS on the other hand offers to benefit a great deal of people through increased scientific research. Still, the MIR hotel could actually help in Russian efforts towards the ISS if some of the income from MIR was redirected towards it.
  • I'll know the end is near for our civilization when we have ads on our skies. An rare airplane with a banner hanging off it isn't too bad, but I think we could use less commercials in our lives. Ads in space might be going too far.

    Some people I've talked with have said that advertisements are just part of pop culture. They're another form of entertainment/information.

    I belive in free will, but I think that people can be strongly influenced by their environment. Modern advertising surrounds us with "solutions" to our problems. I think that advertising is distracting people from solving their real problems and living happy lives by constantly suggesting that they need more things, or a new image, or better breath. One of the worst things about advertising is that much of it is carefully designed to influence people subconciously. I guarentee that advertising dollars are funding scientific reserch into human behavior that is used to manipulate consumers.

    I don't belive that there is some kind of great consiracy to brainwash people into consumers with advertising, but I think that thousands of brands competing for out "eyeballs" has the same effect. Businesses are under pressure to keep up with their competitors. If there is an opportunity to increase profits the companies will say, "My competition will do this even if I don't, so it's not really my fault." And in a way they're right.

    I'm not necessarily against all advertising. It's easy to attack my point of view by giving specific examples and asking if they're wrong. Is it wrong for a farmer to put up a sign by the side of the road advertising fresh picked tomatoes? I don't think so. Is it wrong for a movie theatre to have a marquee with their current shows? Probably not. But when we get overloaded with too many of these messages, many of them designed to appeal to peoples' instinctive nature, I think our society is hurt.

    I hope that we can find a way to sensibly limit advertising. In a nation with a wobbly moral compass, I doubt that we can agree on the proper course of action long enough to make a decision. More likely, there will be little regulation. Anything that can be done, will be.

    There was a time, before we were consumers, when we were citizens.

  • The advertisement (Score:3)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @06:08AM (#1156180)
    LOOKING FOR EXCITEMENT?

    Scaling mountains too tame for you? Basejumping or parachuting boring? Own four SUVs? Then you should take the MIR CHALLENGE.

    For a mere $600,000 a day, you can experience the terror of in-space collisions, failing power systems, and catastrophic decompressions!

    SIGN UP TODAY and you'll receive a free oxygen mask at NO CHARGE (useful when the ship comes apart!).

    Don't delay, call today!

    Warning: slight risk of death on the MiR Challenge. Don't say we didn't warn you.

  • more stories at Yahoo (Score:3)

    by tedtimmons ( 97599 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @06:33AM (#1156181) Homepage
    Yahoo is chock full of stories about this flight. You can see their full coverage here [yahoo.com].

    -ted

  • Commercial Purposes (Score:4)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @05:56AM (#1156182)
    "Commercial Purposes" hardly summarizes what they intend to do.

    Yes friends, Mir is going to become a Hotel.

    From what I gathered on the first article I read, it's not going to be cheap. (Duh) Basically, you take a ride up there, hang out for a few days, and take a ride back. Space Vacation. (WooHoo!)

    Read about it here [msnbc.com], and here [msnbc.com].

    Oh! Coincidentally, check this out:

    2000-02-18 15:40:56 Mir Space Station to become Hotel (articles,space) (declined)
    2000-02-18 19:13:39 Mir Space Station to be made into Hotel (articles,space) (declined)

    *Sigh*, At least now I can finally claim I knew about something before it hit Slashdot. (I never used to be able to do that, but lately.....)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Re:The advertisement (Score:4)

    by CharBoy ( 100343 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @07:30AM (#1156183) Homepage
    Something important to consider is that the Soviet/Russian space program has a much better safety record then the United States.

    Three Cosmonauts died during their return from Salyut 1 when an atmospheric recompression valve opened early (they suffocated), and one Cosmonaut died when his capsule failed to deploy parachutes and impacted the ground at 100+ miles per hour.

    The United States, on the other hand, has spent far fewer hours total in space and has lost 10 Astronauts (vs. 4 in the Soviet/Russian space program). Three Astronauts in Apollo 1, and seven in the Challenger incident.

    Also, for perspective, the air leak currently on Mir (it's going to be the #1 planned priority once the Cosmonauts dock) is leaking less air then any of the Space Shuttles leak during a normal mission. It's true, the Space Shuttle Orbiters are much leakier then Mir.

    Also, during the planning for the Shuttle-Mir missions in the mid 90's, Energia-RSA (the Soviet/Russian space industry) had very strong objections to the following:

    1. Sending up Russian Cosmonauts on the Space Shuttle, which they consider unsafe because there is no abort option for the entirety of the solid rocket booster burn (From liftoff to 2.5 minutes later, if anything goes wrong, everyone dies. No matter what.)
    2. Docking the shuttle w/ Mir because the shuttle is notoriously leaky in orbit (not just air, but also volatile Hydrazine from the RCS) and they were concerned it would damage Mir.

    Finally, the total cost MirCorp paid for the three launches to Mir (One Soyuz, two Progress cargo launches) is $18 million. The total cost for a single space shuttle launch is $500 million. A cost/benefit analysis should say something.

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