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Space Science

Mir Lives 153

Posted by Hemos from the saved-yet-again dept.
hyperstation writes "An article at abcnews.com says that Mir will stay up, thanks to a $27 million donation (that's 750 megarubles) from Russia. Look's like they're not broke after all." *sigh* Someone wake me up when Mir finally falls to the planet.
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Mir Lives More

Mir Lives

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  • Mir Is Boring. Long Live The Karma-Burn!
  • Yet.

    Mathematically, there's about a 3 in 10 chance a falling MIR station would hit land.

    Then again, I'm happy. I'm trying out for Destination: MIR.

    Talk about the potential for a real Geek In Space :)
  • Can that be the end of the stupid 'Mir is crashing' 'oh wait it's not after all!' stories? It's not intersting anymore.

    If they run out of cash, it falls out of the sky. Period. Every time they run out, they say it's gonna fall. Every time someone gives them money, it stays in orbit longer.

    That about sums it up.
  • Why dosn't somebody just replace Mir. For goodness sake it's like someone remodeling a model T ever few years and calling it a good car.

    Also isn't Russia the same country that can't even pay it's citizens and massive food shortages and lack of adequate housing? What is their possible motivation?
  • Why does this remind me of Oral Roberts? "Donate $4 Million or God will call me home!" is that any better than "Mir Crashes into the Pacific unless we get more money!"

    Someone gave Roberts his money, and so did Mir. Personally, it seems everyone is waiting for to see if God really will call Mir home.


    -----------------------------
    1,2,3,4 Moderation has to Go!
  • Wasn't the Mir, space station infested with a mold, or fungus. it seems to me that it would be cheaper for russia to drop mir, and invest some of there money into the international space station. http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/275/nation/Astron auts_vs_fungus+.shtml If that article is correct, I wouldn't want to send my citizens up there, its just way to dangerouse, risking there lives in a rusty space pinto.

  • Rename it: (Score:5)

    by manichawk ( 154084 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @06:25AM (#674118)
    At this rate, it should be renamed to:

    "The Amazing Space Yo-Yo!"...
  • Its up, its down, its up, its down, its up, its down, its up, its down, its up, its down, its up, its down, its up, its down, its up, its down, its up, its down...

    Someone needs to make up their mind. This is a government project! It shouldn't hit the news until everything is final. This is crazy!
    Seriously, they need to bring it down. Its outlived its time, and the ISS will take its place. Out with the old, in with the new. She had her time, and now its over.


    -- Don't you hate it when people comment on other people's .sigs??
  • Now it's official -

    With the recent addition of /. being compared to Chicken-little, there are no more deragatory simliarities to be made.

    Guess I'm leaving, last one out turn off the light lock the door.

  • I say we should pop some boosters on that sucker and launch it into deep space.
  • Would someone please shot down that aging pile of floating crap. All we need is for another major incident to happen, thus giving the anti-space exploration lobby more ammo. NASA must be having a fit.

  • Dont they RUN the Mir? Isn't that a little like me donating myself money so I can eat lunch?

  • Ai thinked thit Ai had kizzed Mir a sveet goodbye fur thee last taime! Bit alas, Ai shall hav teu go bak ind feex it once moore....
    -----
  • "As the world turns" comes to mind. (Funny if you know what "Mir" means in Russian....)
  • "Look's like they're not broke after all."

    Not quite. Russia's military only gets the equivalent of $3 billion in funding, whereas the U.S. military gets over $600 billion. This bailout for the Mir is only worth about three fighter planes; pretty stingy by our government's standards.

  • Maybe they should attach it to the international space station and keep it around as a kind of historical site. Perhaps as a tourist attraction?

    Maybe they should just turf it.

  • It might be worth keeping up there just to study that freaky fungus [slashdot.org]. I personally am not buying a ticket to MIR until they have that whole space organism thing figured out.

  • why? (Score:1)

    by vectus ( 193351 )

    I don't see why they saved MIR, call me a troll, but i personally think that that money could have done more help to the International Space Station, albeit, it is only $27 million dollars, but that could at least help pay for some of it.

  • Uh... just about everyone who's gone into space has been a 'geek' of some sort. Particularly on the earliest space missions.
  • $27M. What is that worth, about five orbits? Please. That money would have been better spent on Russia's obligation to the ISS.
  • Well, as long as we are going to do that, could we pack away a few of the "less desireable" *coughtacobellchiuauacough* elements on board?

  • For those of you who *read* the article, this is redundant, but it should probably be mentioned (for those folks who didn't) that the guy who wrote the original article submission was somewhat misleading in that the funding provided will keep Mir up until February, after which it's fate is undetermined. Likely, without additional outside funds, it will be brought down. But, the point is, according to the article, this influx of cash was necessary, irrespective of whether or not it's going to get "scuttled".

  • now could we collect enough money from slashdot collective, buy the thing and then crash it? da?

  • Sorry, the headline just made me think of Sinistar.
  • I am sure Russia has no money but then they have many assets. Lets just hope that $27 million wasn't raised in a sale of some nukes to Bin Laden or the likes... VANBO

  • Is there a point to keeping Mir alive? (Score:4)

    by Bearpaw ( 13080 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @06:30AM (#674137)
    Aside from the morale/PR value for Russia, is there any point to keeping Mir alive? Given how old and patched it is, and the damage from fires and collisions, is it really still functional enough to be useful? Or should it be given a proud death, briefly lighting the heavens over Siberia?

    (I ain't saying, I'm asking.)

  • errrr.. mir will already be a tourist attraction, exploited by Amsterdam-based MirCorp (IIRC). MirCorp will rent it from russian government, brining in some extra cash (more than those few million just spent on keeping it in the air.

    //rdj

  • Something doesn't add up here.... (Score:3)

    by Sheeple Police ( 247465 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @06:31AM (#674139)
    "US Pledges more money to Russia for ISS" "World Bank releives Russia of debt to help fund ISS" "Russian citizens mugged to give more money to ISS" Now all of a sudden we have, "Russia pledges 750 million ruples to space station because 'It's been such a good space station this week, so it gets an advance on its allowance'" Is it just me or does it seem like Russia is becoming that Hamburger dude from Popeye? "I'll gladly pay you back (whenever) if you loan me money today"
  • Mir is too old to keep in use it's systems crash more than Windows 95 I mean really leave it alone and let it die.
  • Maybe they'll finally get that space tether working and we won't see this headline every-other week (alternating of course with "Mir to be de-orbited). Until then, I guess we get to keep watching investors see their investments go up in the exhaust plumes of fuel-laden supply drones.

  • How bout we launch it out towards Mars. The NASA guys can plan the flight path, they're pretty good when it comes to at least hitting the planet. All the fungus can then populate Mars and start an ecosystem out there so when humans actually get out there there'll be plenty of life.

    Honestly though, I don't like the idea of space fungus crashing into the ocean. You think oil spills are bad, how about bacteria that didn't even originate on this planet. Which sounds more harmful to the environment?
  • More like you delegating the necessary amount of blood to your hand so that it is able to lift the sandwich to your mouth.

  • You would have to look deeper than waders could provide.
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't your math imply that it is *uncontorolled* - in an uncontrolled entry, where all other factors were equal, then yes, it's a 3/10 chance (Earth = 30% land), but sadly for the Australians (*cough*Skylab*cough*), it isn't uncontrolled. So that makes the odds *much* less
  • It might actually break up in the atmosphere, and cause little or no destruction on land/water.
  • What does it mean then?
  • For russians MIR is a symbol of their own achievments and power. Too bad is too old.

    Die in peace (or is it pieces? ;))
  • In this past yahoo article [yahoo.com] described in the slashdot article about the Mir being deorbitted, the russian government was supplying the spacestation fuel to bring it into higher orbit so that it can control its deorbit and put it in the ocean. They are going to bring it down at the end of february. And this article states that it will stay up until at least february. So you are repeating yourself...


    -- Don't you hate it when people comment on other people's .sigs??
  • quite the soap opera

    Hey Taco, did you ever consider renaming this to soapdot.org, maybe get a tie in with all the soaps, add some sections on Titans and Passions.

    Maybe we can broaden the demographics here, and get some more chicks posting.

    Ghod knows I have enough chicks in my life, but I feel for the less fortunate geeks that are making do with Rosie their palm pilot.
  • I'm sure there would be scads of pr0n producers (Vivid Video being the one that comes to mine) that would leap at the chance to produce a zero-g sex movie... just a though for our pr0n lovin friends
  • the bacteria is earth based that just happened to contaminate the station. otherwise we'd have nuked the station a while ago...
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057
  • from iss to mir and back again, whoops, iss is now contaminated with space (earth) fungi that want to eat it from the inside out.

    let's not...
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057
  • Anyone know if that donation came by way of the Bank of New York?

  • Wow, didn't know whatever is growing on that thing gave it life. Put some dead bodies in there and you can have a regular zombie jamborie!

    ---
  • just about everyone who's gone into space has been a 'geek' of some sort.

    Thats funny, I always had the impression that they were all 'jocks' - eg ex-air force, gung-ho all-American heroes. Am I completely wrong? Very probably.

  • Once Mir is effectively replaced by the ISS, let's just blow it out of the sky. That fungus-ridden space fossil is a biohazard and has no reason whatsoever in returning to our atmosphere. Either that or shoot it into the center of the sun. (Don't *bleep* with Wendy Testaburger!)
  • How much money have they spent trying to keep this old peice o' crap up, and how much more would they have to spend to replace the thing? Is fixing it up very economical?
    -------
  • Klebanov was quoted as saying Russia would send space cargo craft Progress to Mir, with fuel needed to safely down the station in a designated location in the Pacific Ocean.

    This comes from a CNN.com article [cnn.com] that the yahoo article (mentioned above) came from.
    And here/A&g t; is the slashdot article mentioned above. [slashdot.org]


    -- Don't you hate it when people comment on other people's .sigs??

  • Re:Is there a point to keeping Mir alive? (Score:3)

    by Anne Marie ( 239347 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @06:42AM (#674160)
    With something as non-trivial as putting a space station into orbit, it's almost always cheaper to keep the existing one running than to burn it and put up a whole new one. Especially today: look at the International Space Station, a $60 billion project.

    Sure, parts are only a small part of the total cost, but the Russian space program (while on hard times of late) is still doing well with existing technology and at quite reasonable prices. A manned soyuz is about $3.5 million, +$0.2million for propellant, +$5million for mission control/year, +$0.6 for launch is well under $10million. Add on the cost of parts/repair, and it's still a steal.
  • It's a little more detailed than the last "Mir is crashing" story, but it says the same thing so far. The last post said that MIR was scheduled for re-entry in late February. This post says that they have the funding to keep it up till February, after that the fate is undecided. So far it sounds like two news sources having two angles on the same story. Typical of the news media in this country...left hand hasn't a clue what the right is doing. My opinion, the damn thing is falling apart, it suffered major damage to its systems in the fire, mold is eating it from the inside out, it's systems are outdated, it's been up there far longer than it's designers ever planned...Let the poor bastard die and lets throw that 27 mil into some optional extras in the ISS. Needs a entertainment system up there...DVD, Surround System, 50" TV, network to play Quake on...that sort of thing to keep the astronauts happy. Phoenix Oh...and a mini fridge filled with nothing but Guiness.
  • well, why not docking the MIR on ISS :)

    at the moment it looks like they will let it again 10 Years in space :)

    *bang*

  • #!/usr/bin/perl

    while (){
    live;
    announce_death;
    }
    die "Screaming heap";

  • Mir is important, even if it's worse off than an A (Score:3)

    by Apuleius ( 6901 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @06:44AM (#674164) Journal
    You guys remember the Mir-is-filling-up-with-fungus story?

    Wouldn't it have sucked for the first Mars mission people to find this out, oh, halfway across?

    NASA's philosophy is to be as certain as possible that everything must be perfectly planned before the first countdown. Baikonur's philosophy is "we'll jump off that bridge when we get to it." Guess what: the Mars mission will need a mix of both philosophies.

    Every new Mir disaster is another data point, another caveat, for the Mars mission. Let's
    give some praise for the Russians for putting up with these disasters (and the American haughtiness they inevitably provoke). We need it.

    (Next Mir story: Mir held hostage by mutant fungus. Neo-organism demands net connection and account on /.)
  • if i had a dollar for every time i read a "mir coming down" or "mir staying up" article id treat my self to a nice dinner.


    NEWS: cloning, genome, privacy, surveillance, and more! [silicongod.com]
  • There's a piece of floating space crap that's infested with some kind of extra-terrestrial fungus. Why do they need money to keep it running? Is it using a long extension cord to reach the earth and if they unplug it will it come plunging down? It's a hunk of worthless crap now. Must be a government project.

    "You'll die up there son, just like I did!" - Abe Simpson
  • doh. didn't like the spaceship operator.
    while (<investor>) {
    should have been the line.
  • Now I'll have to cancel my pre-sale of flaming Mir wreckage on eBay.


    --

  • What about the body? (Score:3)

    by small_dick ( 127697 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @06:46AM (#674169)
    Isn't there still a body on that thing?

    I thought some rich dude, who was funding Carl Sagan's sisters' SETI research, died up there or something.

  • This Old Mir

    The first episode would be on how to repair solar panels and navigate a Progress freighter into the Mir docking port.

    Next week: Scrubbing that furry space fungus off of the control panels!

  • Is there any value to be had from MIR in relation to the new (and now in theoretically 'on-line') International Space Station?

    Usually the biggest hurdle in space exploration is simply getting out of the gravity well of Earth. MIR is already up there. Isn't there a way that it could be used to some benifit for ISS (even if it is only stripped for spare parts)? (or as a last line of evacuation if all else fails?)
  • I'm sure there would be scads of pr0n producers (Vivid Video being the one that comes to mine) that would leap at the chance to produce a zero-g sex movie... just a though for our pr0n lovin friends

    Most space stations run at an atmospheric pressure at about half sea level, though the oxygen partial pressure is of course normal.

    So, if you can imagine what would happen to a highly pressurized bag of silicone or saline at lower pressures, pop!

    Though I'm not very familiar with much porn (though I did really like Net Dreams, did anyone see that? It even had a plot, a cheesy midget and a fistfight, it rooled), does Vivid use normal breasted women or the pneumatic ones?
  • If a space station drops into the ocean when nobody's around, does it make a sound?
  • I suspect J. Wellington Wimpy is running the books in Russia.

    "I shall gladly pay you Tuesday for a MirBurger to-day."


    --
  • I'd disagree with this. You see, Mir is beneficial to the Russian people - it improves moralle.

    As I understand it, lots of people in Russia are rather wistful for the old communist days, when everyone feared Russia and it was a global power. They are depressed and unconvinced by the virtues of capitalism.Therefore, anything that can help them hold their heads up high is good for Russia. Hell, Mir might even contribute to keeping the communists at bay just now - when your army hasn't been payed for 6 months and your fighting a pointless demoralising war (Chechnia) you've always got to be worried about revolution. So, for this reason, Mir may actually serve a useful purpose, in that it may help Joseph Bloggsov stay proud of 'Mother Russia'.Never underestimate the power of symbols.

  • Scarily enough, i totally agree. I've had friends of mine tell me that this comment really made sense, and congratulating me. My nick name is phoenix for most things on the net, though not on slashdot. It's something i would say, just an odd thing to happen.

    it's been up longer than it was supposed to, it's a money sink, and i think adding streaming video from outside the ISS is a better use of 27 mil. imnsho.

    and definately guinness.... yummy.
  • 11/1/00 1/31/01 92 Days
    $293,478.26 Per Day
    $12,228.26 Per Hour
    $203.80 Per Minute
    $3.40 Per Second

  • Re:Mir and it's usefulness and Russia (Score:3)

    by Anne Marie ( 239347 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @06:52AM (#674178)
    First, the Russian space program is heavily subsidized by international efforts, both through direct grants and through IMF credits, so the burden doesn't fall so greatly on the Russian government itself. Besides, the space program is an important part of international diplomacy and is necessary for that reason alone.

    Second, Russia isn't doing nearly as badly right now, thanks to the threefold increase/barrel in the price of oil. They have incredible problems with infrastructure (especially with factories falling apart), but that's an argument in favor of continuing the program, not shutting it down.

    Third, fundamental domestic problems have never stopped any other country from pursuing these high-profile feats of national pride (and maintaining MIR is a much different and cheaper proposition than building nuclear weapons like Pakistan and other countries are doing). Why should it stop Russia now?
  • Mir means peace.
  • This makes me wonder if all along the Russians did have the money to keep it up but didn't reveal it so that someone else (US) would come along and give them the money.

    Cheapskates!
  • "Mir" means both "world" and "peace". This is the point in the conversation where I always point out that Lev Tolstoy's "War and Peace" should have been translated better as "War and the World".
  • That would not be a good idea. MIR is infested with a green fungus, probably planted, or at least brought up by some space agency whos lift off pads are in a humid, moist, swampy type place. If they docked MIR to zarya, they would end up passing that fungus on to it.
  • How much do you think I would have to pay the Russian Gov. just to make sure they throw MIR into the ocea and never ever talk about it again?


    "When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun...

  • The MIR Telethon (Score:3)

    by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @06:59AM (#674184) Homepage
    Carol: ... so we need everyone's support to keep this research station up in orbit, we need you to call in and pledge your support, 10, 50, 100 million rubles, whatever level you feel comfortable with, and, ok, for the next 10 callers, yes, the next ten callers will receive a FREE "Great MIR Accomplishments" CD, so pick up the phone and, oh yes, here's Ed with some news...

    Ed: That's right Carol, this just in the Russian Government has pledged 750 - that's right 750 million Rubles to help keep MIR in orbit...

    Carol: Wow!

    Ed: Yes, but this will only help keep it going until February folks, so we can't stop now, our goal is 3 Billion Rubles....

    Carol: Thanks Ed, a big show of thanks for the Russian Government for that tremendous pledge, wow [applause] now , ok, we challenge anybody out there, if you can match the Russian pledge we'll send you not only the CD BUT also this coffee table book "MIR Photography" so pick up that phone now, call 1-800-SAVE-MIR and make that pledge, is easy to do, operators are - yes, we have operators just waiting for your call, so do it now, we've only got another week and....
  • How come everyone is out to kill poor Mir?

    It is an amazing achievment keeping a space station around for so long. It has taught cosmonaut's alot about living in space and it has contributed greatly to research science.

    I say keep it going as long as possible. Just because it's not new doesn't mean it can't contribute. I mean it's already built and running. Nothing to shoot up into space just repair it and keep going, Maybe build onto it.

    Why not scrape that overpriced ISS and spend the money on expanding and improving Mir?

    Could it be American arogance? Just because the US did not build it does not mean it's not worthwhile.

  • I have always been impressed with the fact that man has been able to engineer a space station that is useful after almost double its life expectancy, even if it is smelly, dirty, and has the leg room of a chevette.
  • The Russians run out of Duct tape and Lysol dysinfectant.
  • There just keeping it up there until they can drop it on something meaningful. Splashing down into the ocean has been done to death.

    --
  • Russia pledged 750 million rubles ($27 million) on Thursday to launch two supply craft to keep its aging Mir space station flying until February, Itar-Tass reported, but its fate beyond that remained unclear.

    The first line if the article.

    Wasn't this the plan last week when you posted a very similar article?
    Mir will crash and burn soon.

  • People of Earth:
    No human had donated money to keep our space craft up here. We have deliberately hacked one of your servers and emailed a message to the Russian government that we are sending money to them. We needed some extra time so that we can complete the boosters we have been building. By the time you are reading this, we should pass by Mars. It has been a memorable 10 years with you. Thank you for your space craft.

    Kronos
    Leader of the Space Fungus race
    ------------------------------------

    Note before you reply: I can't remember if it was 10 years anymore... it's been waaaaay to long.
    ---
  • Reminds me of "Friday the 13th: Jason Lives", and I think in one of the many sequels, Jason cuts up a bunch of people on a space station.

    I see a sequel of a sequel here.
  • I don't know why that got moderated down. He has a point you know.

    After all, the guy found it interesting enough to post it, yet he acts like he's completely bored with it. Um, hello, tap*tap*tap, is this thing on.
  • You are a nation that is essentially going bankrupt and have an old Space Station that mostly, sort of works with lots of fungii, what do you do?

    A) Let it die and spend the money on food

    b) Bring it down safely so someone in Singapore doesn't have it fall on his house.

    c) Spend the money to prevent your aging nuclear arsenel from blowing up in your face.

    d) Spend enough money to buy each citizen a loaf of bread on keeping it alive.

    Btzzz, wrong. The answer is D.

    Nationality can make some nations that can't afford to feed it's own citizens do some really stupid things.

  • *sigh* Someone wake me up when Mir finally falls to the planet.

    Wow! It sounds like you really want a close encounter with the space fungus. Don't be depressed! It'll fall back to earth eventually!


  • Besides, the space program is an important part of international diplomacy and is necessary for that reason alone.


    How does it effect the balance of power to have an operational space station? Seems slighly hollow.
  • Couldn't they permanently dock Mir onto ISS?

    This would give Mir it's supply link and orbital stability, and instantly give ISS a larger work area and array of instruments.

    Admitedly, Mir's instruments are old and it's living quarters not exactly to Hilton standards. it also has it's fongus problems and other issues. but being grafted onto ISS could make Mir an adequate backup solution for both instrumental issues and life support.

    Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
  • Yep you're wrong - they were all 'jocks' - eg ex-air force, gung-ho all- Russian heroes... :)

    --
  • I called to donate, and it says "The Fax Number You Have Dialed Is Not in Service!" Stupid Russians... -Rob

  • AFAIK, Mir is now "privately" run by the RSC Energia corporation, which used to be the Soviet space agency.

    So if the Russian government has given RSC Energia a load of cash, the situation is analogous to Congress allocating funds to NASA for the International Space Station. Or, to use your own analogy, it's like your mom allocating lunch money to you :)

  • Re:Is there a point to keeping Mir alive? (Score:3)

    by henley ( 29988 ) on Thursday October 26, 2000 @07:28AM (#674200) Homepage

    Quite apart from any of the justifications you'll hear (of which, let's be honest, politics & prestige are the only 2 that count), from a pushing-the-bounds-of-human-knowledge viewpoint the single best reason to keep Mir up there is that, yes indeed it's absolutely vital we understand what goes wrong on long-duration space facilities and how we deal with it.

    Think of all that was learned in Mir's fire, and the crash. Ignore the *causes* of those disasters for a moment, and think of what was learnt:

    • Fire-fighting in zero gravity is both easier and more difficult than on the earth. Easier, because if you shut down the air circulation there's no reason for the fire to spread. More difficult because since the fire's consumed the local oxygen it's tough to get close, the smoke won't disperse on it's own, the heat gets retained and you can re-ignite the fire etc etc etc...
    • Hull-breaches do not necessarily require instant evacuation. On the other hand, they *will* require evacuation if the offending sections can't be identified and closed off quickly... (damn I really REALLY hope ISS learns this lesson and we don't see cables+wires+ducts getting strung up through bulkheads there when inbuilt connections fail....).
    • The Mark 1, mod 0 eyeball coupled with Wetware v1.0 is *not* sufficient to handle teleoperated dockings with limited training and even more limited information.

    Now think about what's been learnt about maintenance, repair techniques, re-supply, logistics, human psychology in crisis situations... The damn thing is an extremely valuable resource and there's *no way* it should be allowed to re-enter. It would even be worthwhile abandoning-in-place and *attempting* to revisit in 10 years time - even if the attempt fails (I'm thinking of the troubles re-visiting the abandoned Salut 7 here), you'd learn a lot about what's needed just in making the attempt.


  • How else will NBC get to broadcast "Destination Mir"?

    Maybe RSC Energia should hit up NBC for some buck$!
  • Senior government ministers have said they favor bringing the 14-year-old station out of orbit and letting it crash in the ocean, but space officials have avoided taking a public stand on the fate of what was once the pride of Soviet science.

    Sardonica enabled: Isn't it just terrible the way IMF, World Bank and internal Russian money slated for Russian needs ends up in the Gibralter bank accounts of the oligarchs, as, of course, it should -- but when the time comes for the space bureaucracy to be given a little money so they can go through the charade of an international space station with NASA, they don't just turn the money they've been given over to NASA the way they should -- they keep that awful, dirty, creaky, smelly, garbage-heap of a "space station" MIR alive and victimize the one true and only international space station?

    Sardonica disabled: NASA, even more than most other bureaucracies, abhors competition. The last thing NASA can tolerate is a major political embarrassment. The worst political embarrassment imaginable is some other, more poorly-funded organization obviously outperforming NASA. Another Shuttle disaster is more politically tolerable than that because NASA can always say, "You just didn't give us enough money so we were forced to cut corners." the way they can do with anything just but only to the extent that it is unique, no matter how wasteful or stupid it is.

    So, the uniqueness of the space station is absolutely essential to NASA's politics. Any alternate space station means NASA will continually have to be thinking about what the competition might be doing that could prove embarrassing.

    NASA is the true heir of Soviet central planning.

  • If this keeps up, I can imagine that in a hundred years or so, someone is going to urge that we preserve Mir as a historic site for the tourists. We'll just have to tow it up a little higher.

    This also would be a good platform for studying the deterioration of materials in space, (never mind the fungi on board).

  • Quite apart from any of the justifications you'll hear (of which, let's be honest, politics & prestige are the only 2 that count), from a pushing-the-bounds-of-human-knowledge viewpoint the single best reason to keep Mir up there is that, yes indeed it's absolutely vital we understand what goes wrong on long-duration space facilities and how we deal with it.

    I understand what you're saying, but it seems to me that you describe what we have learned from Mir. What I'm wondering is whether it's really worth it to keep it up there. IANARS (I Am Not A Rocket Scientist), but I don't think it really can be "abandoned-in-place" without ongoing maintenance funding, of the sort that keeps getting scraped up at the last minute.

  • No people, the station is going down...
    Right here people has talked more and more on bringing it down without question.

    Yeah it may live theoretically five years more. But do the risks cost it? The station is really old. Everything there is overaged. Even the main structures. Cosmic radiation does not forget about them also... So upon a certain moment such things turns from national pride to a useless weight and a dnagerous headache. I believe that, if the station was not so battered by lack of funds then it could have lived some years more. No one cared and the station got not only older but also beaten... Right now I consider that it is a risk to hold it up there, as future glitches may be too serious to be controlled. Besides if the real wrong thing happens, then it will be a serious financial burden to the Federation. And a blow in prestige.

    Frankly, if I was the decisionmaker I would not send the station into sea. No, I would send it to the Moon. This stuff is somehow a museum. Maybe we cannot bring it down in one piece. But today we can send it only in little pieces today. But future generations would manage to do this in a much better way and save this monument of Mankind.
  • Let the damned thing crash and burn.. what I want is my own personal HoloDeck. Then everyone will be able to synthesize little green monsters on little round planets and there won't be any little edge rednecks running around with shotguns.
  • It doesn't "affect" any balance of power, but it's useful nonetheless as a place for common ground and common endeavors. Look at it this way: it's useful for diplomatic relations between you and your playmates if you own and operate a videogame machine (or a terminal for reading slashdot, for that matter). It doesn't give you an extra card to play in times of war, but it does give you something you and your allies can play with in times of peace and build on your relationships.
  • They were all gung-ho air force jocks with advanced degrees. Geek and jock are not mutually exclusive, you know.
    ~luge
  • Fucking crack addicted moderators!

    As I said elsewhere, crack addicted means you have your head shoved so far up your ass that you cannot smell anything but your own crack.

    This seems to be a pre-requisit for moderation anymore. What a fuck-hole!
  • Mir goes up, Mir goes down, Mir goes up, Mir goes down ...
  • In case people are still wondering why we get an announcement one week that Mir will come down, and the next week we get one that it will stay up ... and then two or three months down the line the cycle repeats itself ...

    The Russian Space Agency is much less in charge of their space program than are the two main contractors (which became private companies after the breakup of the USSR), Energia and Krunichev. These companies can see the writing on the wall: the vaunted Russian space program is no more. They're not sitting around, though. They know that they need to generate business outside of Russia. Energia formed MirCorp as a Western company to attract investment dollars, yes, but also as a base for networking with the European and American aerospace industries.

    Some of the constant tug-of-war over ISS and Mir is Energia and Krunichev competing cold-bloodedly for scarce aerospace dollars. Another part of it is these companies singly or jointly playing chicken with the Russian government over the operation of Mir. By forming MirCorp, then holding out their empty pockets, they perform a neat hat trick of appearing to make every effort to attract Western dollars, of appearing to make every effort to become fully privatized and self-sustaining Westernized companies, and of increasing their power to pull the rug out from under the Russian government -- which after all still technically runs the space program and can't bear to see it shut down.

    The realistic prospects for MirCorp as a permanent source of funding for Mir were always extremely dubious. Even if you assume that everything in Russia costs less, US$50M is still a ludicrously low figure for the cost of a single Soyuz mission. The true cost to the government of Russia must be several times that. It follows that MirCorp is essentially a way to get hard Western currency directly into the pockets of the Russian space industry, rather than the just-barely-not-worthless Russian government scrip.

    If you see another report that Mir is coming down, read it carefully. It's probably a calculated political maneuver, more than hard-and-fast news about the station's fate.
    ----

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