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Space

Mir: Rest in Pieces 212

Posted by michael from the finally dept.
This is, I hope, the last Mir story we'll be doing for a long while. Mir's dead. Controllers gave the de-orbit command at 12:08 AM EST, and it apparently came down just before 1 AM EST. Lots of stories out there, here are just a few: Space.com | AP | BBC. Remarkably, pieces of Mir are already being auctioned on Ebay. More information below.

Space.com is giving the splashdown time at 12:58 AM EST, which seems to agree with what everyone else is saying. Unless I can find a more precise time, I'll go with that.

Mir stats: first piece launched Feb. 20, 1986. Returned to Earth Mar. 23, 2001. Total orbits: 86,331 (that's a Trivial Pursuit question in the next edition, guaranteed). Longest stay: 438 days, Cosmonaut Valery Polyakov, currently the record-holder for longest stay in space. Debris footprint: 120 miles by 3,600 miles, centered around 44 S latitude and 150 W longitude.

Jacek Fedorynski took a look at Guess When Mir Will Splash and drew up this nice histogram of the guesses. He also notes that the median guess for Mir's return to Mother Earth was 2001-03-19 10:11:01.

Good guesses:

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Mir: Rest in Pieces More

Mir: Rest in Pieces

Comments Filter:

  • Re:Tacos (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    God damn, enough with the freakin' tacos already!
    In yesterday's MIR story, exactly 63% of the posts had some relation to that cheap-ass publicity ploy. Yeah, it was amusing, for about thirty seconds. And unlike "AYBABTU", it is not funnier if it's repeated 100 times.
    They're a part of Pepsico, for God's sake.

  • Re:Billion (Score:1)

    by mce ( 509 )
    Actually, what a billion is depends on where you are and what language you speak. Some or all of those who call 1000 million a milliard, will say that a billion really is a million million.

    In dutch, for instance:
    1 million = 1000 thousand
    1 milliard = 1000 million
    1 billion = 1000 milliard
    1 billiard = 1000 billion
    1 trillion = 1000 billiard

    etc.

    --

  • That's all I could think ofwhen I heard they were going to splash the station...

    Image if this bug survies and likes plastic? We would be deaddeaddead.

    ttyl
    Farrell
  • Ebay killed the auction.
  • CCCP times are over. Maybe now we can concentrate on Russian achievements rather than hanging on to our - somewhat not so glorious - past. I think our country still has an enormous potential on the space arena... who do you call when you can't afford losing a sat? nope, not ghostbusters! The Russians!

    We still have a space station... that is if Junior B. has the mental ability to understand some basic rules of cooperation: For what I know, the in-ter-na-tio-nal space station doesn't belong to the yanks. It belongs to everybody who worked on the project. That being said, eventhough it is sad to see mir going down, I think we needed that to, who knows? maybe build another one?

    VOT TAK! :-)

    ---

  • I can see it...

    Godzilla vs. the Space Station

    =]

  • ...by searching for "MIR space station". Does anyone have a mirror or pdf of the actual bidding page? There aren't many auction pages worth saving, but the Seattle earthquake rubble [ebay.com] (~30 min after the quake) and the one for MIR salvage are pretty funny.
  • It's nice to see that someone in this world has some pride about something. This is something ebbing away in the US. I'd agree that Mir was/is a great achievment. Communist or non-Communist Russia, it's what will be the catalyst and set the precedent of the entire world's next generation of space exploration projects.
  • Nah, the real tragedy is if Mir is mentioned alongside the Taco Bell dog. Not only is a great evil been done, but you know Damien(tm) has taken over.
  • Well, both. It's been awhile since I've dealt with either.
  • Reminds me of that movie "The Andromeda Strain".
  • ...*unremarkably* is more like it.

  • http://slashdot.org/articles/01/02/16/131214.shtml #145
  • Look at the timestamp on the start of the auction, versus the actual splashdown time. I doubt this is a legit auction....
  • I knew it wouldn't take long before someone thought up the bright idea (pun not intended) of putting the remains of Mir up on eBay. :-)

    It'll be interesting to see how many verifiable pieces of Mir remains are posted on various eBay auctions. Some pieces could go for thousands of dollars.
  • I guess it didn't hit the Taco Bell Free Taco target.
    I was sooo looking forward to a free taco.
  • Techno and Rap do not qualify for being classified as music since they are only a collection of recompositions of the telophone dial tone!

    Oh, and another song based on the same three freaking chords is any different.....

  • Anyone have an mpeg copy of the reentry movie? It seems everything on the net is either Quicktime, Real or AVI.
  • If he doesn't have it, it's probably because he doesn't want it for one reason or another.

    Because it sucks donkey nuts?

  • Or at least just preserve the orbit, and add on the pieces to the ISS instead. Launch costs being so high it seems almost criminal to just destroy such a costly investment. Sure, the parts of Mir may not be exactly right for the ISS, but at least you could keep them as unpressurized storage compartments. That's got to be cheaper than re-launching equivalent hardware from Earth.

  • So, is the United States having mexican tonight?
  • Billion has "bi", which means two; Trillion has "tri", which means three. Million's "M" is likely related to "mono", which means one. But one of what? Two of what?

    They're counting groups of six zeros.

    My theory is that back during the American Revolution, most people didn't use numbers so large and didn't learn what a billion was. Just like these days most people don't learn what a hacker is. A word used by a few can get corrupted when it becomes popularized.

  • Video footage (Score:5)

    by rleyton ( 14248 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @03:15AM (#345020) Homepage
    Ok, so the book might not be out yet, and i've no idea about t-shirts, but the movie is here [bbc.co.uk], and lots more besides at the good old BBC [bbc.co.uk].
  • So, did Mir hit the 40' X 40' floating "Free Taco" banner? Taco Bell set up this banner as a publicity stunt. If Mir, or a significant piece of Mir, I suppose, hit the banner, Taco Bell claimed they would give a free taco to every person in the USofA. I would think CmdrTaco would have been following this important story!

    Bravery, Kindness, Clarity, Honesty, Compassion, Generosity

    • Actually, a billion is a thousand million, not a million million.

    I never understood the logic in that.

    Million: 10^6
    American Billion: 10^9
    Real Billion: 10^12
    American Trillion (?): 10^12 (is it?)
    Real Trillion: 10^18

    Did I get that right? And if I did, look at the progression and tell me which is more logical, 6k or 3+3k.

    • So that way you don't get gaps where you have to say "thousand-something"

    In Finland (and we use Germans' number system, see post up and backward) thousand million (or 10^9) is "miljardi", which I used to translate "milliard". I found it much more logical; billion is (2 times 6) powers of ten, billiard (hehe ;]) is (2.5 times 6) powers of ten.

  • After the mention of cosmonauts that have died in space, I did some searching and found the following link...

    Russian Aerospace Guide - Cosmonauts [mcs.net]

    This is an excerpt from a book by James Oberg titled "Uncovering Soviet Disasters"...about half way down the page is and interesting list of accidents that happened before 1973.

    No mention of the MIR on this page (I think it's because this seems to have been done in 1985), but I thought that since everyone that mentions Cosmonauts that have died in space doesn't have the proof to back it up...well, this at least lends some validity to their complaints.

    The strangest incident mentioned is this one "On February 4, 1961, a mystery Soviet satellite was heard to be transmitting heartbeats, which soon stopped (some reports even described it as a two-man capsule, and several "missing cosmonauts" were listed as Belokonev, Kachur, and Grachev)."
  • BTW, I am to be corrected. It was done in 1988, but it only mentions accidents that happened up to 1985...maybe because anything that might have happened later would have still been classified???
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Dude, just have superman do it! That would be practically free.

  • My Condolences.

    Although this is way OT, I had a similar experience. I finished my thesis in 1998 in Engineering Geoscience and did not dig in enough to learn Latex (a mistake I am now fixing). I had 100 pages without figures, and all kinds of stringent demands regarding layouts of table of contents, lists of figures, running heads, etc etc etc ad spewnitum. And two appendices of formulae.

    After proofs by my advisors I tried to make the few "small" changes to the text suggested and watched the whole document self-destruct. I had returned to the campus from another state just to submit the thesis to the graduate department, and I spent the next 10 hours feverishly trying to get Word to cooperate for a final printing before my flight. Unfortunately I had a single long text document - but the lovely tools in Word are designed to automate all those tasks, right?

    MicroSloth's rules for auto-formatting were devised by some netherworld slug with horns and a pitchfork.

    I still dont have the latex proficiency to run off journal papers but I am working past the odd memo with equations. As far as references on latex, get the "dog book" -- the rescue st bernard with the whiskey onboard in the mini-keg. (The Latex Companion, goossens et al).

    Word is actually great for something less than a couple pages without inline figures.

    Anyway, my condolences and regards,

  • Lobster sticks to magnet!
    ----
    Dave
    MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
  • Left claw North! RIGHTCLAWSOUTH!!
    Zubenelgeubi and Zubeneschamali, the claws of scorpion?
  • Puesto que el Mir es de ruso, creo que la frase correcta es "Mne khochitsa Taco Bell".
    O si prefieres en lugar: "Ya khachu Taco Bell".
  • /me checks in the oven.

    How about $2000 for a burnt piece of metal? I mean a piece of the Mir space station. I accept credit cards.
  • Oh... wait... Mir was the only Space Station in orbit after Skylab was scrapped.

    No, the Salyut 7 (basically like Mir's core module, but not expandable) was in orbit before Mir, and stayed up there until it was de-orbited by the USSR in February 1991.

  • Any bugs in MIR came from earth.
    Any space borne bugs ON MIR would have survived the landing on a METEOR and already got here.
    Any mutant microbes probably wont have any more effect than the ones that are already here, mutating constantly.
    You halfwit.
  • So what you're saying is I missed out on my free taco...

    ;-)


  • Someone else on eBay has an auction [ebay.com] for "Actual Piece of the Mir"--not. Mildly amusing. Much cheaper than the actual[?] piece.
  • Isn't it ironic that the "Death of Mir" coincides with diplomats being sent back to the Russia? This could lead to a heightened level of distrust between Russia and the US, if not a peace breakdown altogether. "Mir" is Russian for "Peace."
  • Well, I'm not a throwaway account. But then,
    I'm not American either. And I agree (and for
    the record I know quite a few Americans who
    agree) with minus23.

    Such a cynical attempt to use an unprecedented
    occurrence to manipulate the general media-sheep
    populace into brand recognition is just a low
    form of preying on the weak. Looks like you fell
    for it.

  • ...the personal ship of the station's last commander was found empty in the Coriana 6 system today. His whereabouts are currently unknown...
  • billion n. & adj. --n. (pl. same or (in sense 3) billions) (in sing. prec. by a or one) 1 a thousand million (1,000,000,000 or 10(9)). 2 (now less often, esp. Brit.) a million million (1,000,000,000,000 or 10(12))
    --
  • When you said "Pepsi rules", you of course meant: "Mountain Dew rules"...

    Tostitos are the best salsa and cheese dipping chips (especially the cute bite sized round ones), but for everyday snacking, Doritos still take the cake: "Now with even more Orange Space Fungus Cheeze(tm)."
    --
  • There's no need to spell it "taco's"... that's like "There are many table's in the restaurant."

    --
  • According to tacobell.com, Mir did not in fact hit their target.

    All your free tacos are belong to us. (iow, no free tacos for americans)

    --buddy
  • In the UK and most of europe I believe, the official dictionary definition of a billion is a million million or 1,000,000^2

    Similarly a trillion is 1,000,000^3 and a quadrillion 1,000,000^4

    However In my A-Level Physics class we were told to always use the american scale of numbering, but it was never explained why...

  • It's not too late, folks! We can still get the tacos! We must pool our resources, buy the Mir bits from ebay, and locate the tacobell raft! Having gotten Mir, and having found the raft, we can introduce them too each other, and obtain our tacos! Late, but not too late!
  • Mutant microbes don't need Mir to get down to earth. If they could survive reentry on Mir, cound't they make it here on their own?

    I don't think Mir has added significantly to the risk of invasion by mutant microbes.
    --
    Patrick Doyle
  • Anaerobic: They don't need air.. they still need food..
  • Actually, a billion is a thousand million, not a million million.

    When I was a kid, a billion was a million million. But these days it seems that the definition of it as a thousand million is almost ubiquitous (I don't agree, but I go with the flow).

    I think this is because it a politician and advertisers billion, looks impressive, everybody goes "wow! look at how many Billions! BillyG has!", and "look how our kind leaders are pumping Billions! into promoting thermonuclear destruction..", "Microsoft is great, Billions! of people buy Windows!!!!!!!"

    I'm too cynical for this shit. 10^9 is quicker to type.


    EZ
  • You mean the book?
  • That's great! What is funny is that it really has bids! Did you see his other auctions [ebay.com]? I might have to bid on the moist towelette. After all, you never know when you might need one... ;)
  • Actually, Pepsico spunoff [pepsico.com] their resturants off a few years ago. Now they are owned by "TriCon"

    But I don't know what you are talking about... Cheetos rule, Tostitos rule, Sun Chips rule and god knows Pepsi rules. Therefore Pepsico rules.

    -Lenza
  • Why didn't they just Push it towards the sun, instead of bringing back down?
  • Pioneering ships destroyed

    AP, Portugal, July 4, 1507: The Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, used by Cristobal Colon in his discovery of a new route to the Indies, were deliberately destroyed last night, being set afire by their owners.

    "They were old, and had rats," explained a Portugese government official. "Our main concern is to save a bit of money."

    There has been speculation that England had asked Portugal to destroy the ships as a symbol of England's recent success at colonial enterprises.

    Rumors of the impending destruction had been circulating for several months. A few rich investors wanted to use the ships as a museum or hotel, but plans fell through. "It's just too expensive and difficult to keep a fifteen-year-old ship afloat, and not enough people want to spend the money and take the risk of going for a cruise on it," said one potential buyer.

    The public has been inexplicably gleeful at the destruction, focusing on the rats and the leaks instead of the historical significance of the vessels. Many who have been following the story made bets on how long the ships would burn once they were set afire. The Nina sank at 1:01 PM, the Pinta and Santa Maria soon after.

    Charred bits of wood drifted ashore and soon appeared in the market next to pieces of the True Cross.

    Chris Phoenix
  • The photo acompanies this article [washingtonpost.com] but it's much smaller (though better detailed).

    They also have a link to a RealVideo Clip [rbn.com] which was obviously filmed on a camcorder but manages to catch quite a bit of the debris fly-over.

  • Re:Enough with the taco's already. (Score:5)

    by birder ( 61402 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @03:47AM (#345055) Homepage
    If in 25 years Mir is mentioned along with a footnote to Taco Bell... then we (as Americans) have done a great evil.

    It's already going to happen. Haven't you seen Demolition Man?
  • > ... it didn't kill Kenny?

    No this time. And you didn't get your free 74Q0. :-P
    --
  • No damos tacos a los que no saben hablar bien castellano. (We don't give tacos to anyone who don't know how to speak spanish)
    --
  • Jajajajaja! Ocioso... :-)

    (But everyone seems to want Taco Bell anyway...)
    --
  • To a Star:

    Power of the Russians
    Glory of the Skies
    Oldest of man's Satellites
    You have inspired the dreams of thousands
    Fulfilled the hopes of many
    Brightened the eyes of millions

    Your trip is now finished
    Your journey complete
    You have done well
    We salute you.

    Rest in Peace
    Mir
    23 March 2001

  • If it doesn't get said... (Score:4)

    by aidoneus ( 74503 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @03:16AM (#345060) Journal
    CNN [cnn.com] is reporting at 05:58GMT the Russian Mir Space Station has splashed into the Pacific Ocean. Full details can be found here [cnn.com]. Personally, it was a little bittersweet to witness the end of an era. After all, Mir had spent somewhere near 3.5 billion (million million for the UKians in the audience) miles and 15 years in space. It really was a remarkable piece of technology, but Russians really should be applauded for the accuracy of the descent. From what I understand they only missed the targeted area by a few hundred miles. Maybe they had representatives from the Mars Polar Lander team... :)
  • You mean the Russians have done something other than starve and develop a kick-ass mafia since the breakup of the USSR? I had no idea.

  • ... or the marketing people at Taco Ball will have pulled off one of the greatest, most successful advertising stunts of all time.
  • Thats funny. /.'ers trolling ebay. Man I hope the current winner wins.

    -Moondog
  • Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird. It's a plane! It's a really obvious although not very creative reference to Superman!

  • re-entry pictures (Score:5)

    by rehannan ( 98364 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @03:20AM (#345075) Homepage
    Space.com has some pictures of MIR's re-entry [space.com]. MIR hit the water at 05:58 GMT Mar 23.
  • OH NO not the *ENVIRONMENT*! (gasp!)

    Sigh. Once again, science fiction over science fact. Or at least the reality that if there were any "Deadly Space Microbes"(TM) that magically attached themselves onto Mir, there's no more risk than there has been over the last 5 billion years during which similar microbes have made their way down to the lower atmosphere from either outer space, or those that somehow managed to be lofted up from the lower depths of the atmosphere, and managed to stick around long enough to mutate.

    Oops - that means that nature might do EXACTLY THE SAME THING. How dare it.

    The entire concept of "a heathly environment" is fallacious. If you require proof of this, go to some remote place and see how healthy the environment is for you. Just from natural water supplies you won't be able to drink, malaria, and the fact that many wild beests won't care about killing you, I think you'll find that Earth (and probably every other place in the Universe) is a pretty hostile place to be.

    And for THAT matter, why is shooting Mir out into space or into the Sun any more "environmentally friendly" than wontonly dumping your trash into some land fill? Basically that IS the hypocrasy that you're suggesting; it's nothing more than a new gloss on "not in my back yard".

  • I think this makes for a very dangerous precedent. I am talking about all the mutant microbs and bacteria that Mir was carrying.

    Who knows what survived the plunge into the ocean, or even went foating on earth's atmosphere?

    They should have boost it out into the sun or empty space; but of course, that would've cost a lot more money, and as always, money is king in this world. Who cares about a healthy environment when we can save a buck.
  • How about the money problem a strange new disease could bring? My point is, we will have more of this kind of objects coming back to earth in the future, and one day we could pay for being so careless.

  • Piece of mir on e-bsy (?) (Score:3)

    by tonyt ( 115436 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @03:36AM (#345086) Homepage
    here is a rather sketcthy auction for a piece of the space station:

    http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& item=1126537064 [ebay.com]

    this appeared very soon after splashdown, and by a user clearly created just to sell "mir-wreckage". could a boat really pick up pieces of mir? charred hunks of spacestation don't seem like they would be floating and easily spottable. also, this would be very easy to scam adequately, with a blowtorch and some twisted metal/plastic/fiberglass, although the experts could probably tell.

    maybe someone can put up a bid, pain the slashdot logo over the char marks, and offer it as a second prize for people who didn't win the slashdot pt cruiser.

  • I would disagree. People view this as an achievement of Russian people, not of the Soviet Regime. Besides, as a Russian, I would tell you that it was much more painful to read stories about an "ailing space station", and go over constant wise-cracks about Russians not being able to support it like they did.

    People seem to forget, that Russia is smaller than Soviet Union was. We don't have Southern republics any more, and we don't even have Baikonur launch facilities -- they belong to Kazakhstan now. For over a decade Russia has been in a very bad economical and political situation. I mean -- US has an economical recession now and people scream bloody hell as NASDAQ falls below certain points. This is NOTHING compared to the situation in Russia, although things are looking much better than they did in the early nineties.

    Don't forget, also, that we built a big part of the Alpha station -- and salaries for our engineers are incomparable to the ones at NASA.

    I'd say that we should be DAMN proud of our history and of our achievements. And believe me -- you haven't heard the last of us yet. ;) (in a good sort of way, of course).

  • Re:Slashdot Trollers Hit Ebay.... (Score:3)

    by __aapbgd5977 ( 124658 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @08:51AM (#345093)
    The auction [ebay.com] is an E-Bay classic - almost as good as when people put Elian up for auction (Descripton was something like "Surplus government property for sale, small boy, age 6, can tread water...". My favorite bidder tho is: this one. [ebay.com]
    ==

  • Re:Dangerous precedent (Score:3)

    by andycal ( 127447 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @04:17AM (#345096)
    Do you have ANY clue how much power it would take to get something so big out of earth orbit. I don't have numbers but clearly the thing is several times larger than the largest objects ever tossed our of Earth Orbit. (Apollo Command Modules and Lunar Modules)

    Are you suggesting that the current space budgets be hacked up even more to pay for a couple of Saturn Vs (Billions in today's dollars) to perform this task.

    It would probably be cheaper to send 10 or so shuttle missions up to bring it down in pieces.. and I'll bet some of the pieces wouldn't fit in the shuttle bay.

    besides, the bacteria was on the outside, which probably reaches autoclave temperatures on the way down. I doubt much could survive that.
  • It was live on CNN, the altitude counter hit 0 at around 5:58 GMT

  • ObStarWars (Score:5)

    by mrBlond ( 141708 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @03:17AM (#345101)
    That's not a meteor, it's a space station!
    --
    mrBlond

  • So, what are you saying... (Score:3)

    by kernel-panic ( 142422 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @03:15AM (#345102)
    ... it didn't kill Kenny?

  • Very impressive, but unfortunately no free taco's (Score:3)

    by Manhigh ( 148034 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @03:22AM (#345104)
    Its nice when something in the space industry goes as well as this did. Unfortunately, hopes of free taco's have gone unfullfilled. [4.18.84.31] If by some off chance you havent seen the video of it over Fiji yet, check it out. http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/03/23/mir.desce nt/index.html [cnn.com] Very cool stuff. Congratulations and condolences to everyone who helped to bring it down so successfully.
  • There's one major reason why they don't send it out to space. It would cost too much in terms of fuel. It's a lot easier to slow the orbit so it falls to earth, than to escape the earth's gravity, when you're dealing with something that has as much mass as Mir. Also the thrust required may cause bits to drop off, adding to space junk threatening the ISS and anything else going into space.

    Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
  • It gave us experience and lessons for future missions, and you can't get experience in something without doing it.

    --
  • There's no way microbes could survive in space - how would they live? They'd need air and food

    Anaerobic microbes wouldn't.

    ---
    The AOL-Time Warner-Microsoft-Intel-CBS-ABC-NBC-Fox corporation:
  • It seems everything on the net is either Quicktime, Real or AVI.

    What, don't have a viewer? Oh, you must use Leenux. Too bad for you. Looks like it's time to h4x0r.

  • People have been living in MIR for 15 years, if there were some deadly bacteria in there you'd think we would have noticed it by now. Not to mention that things get REALLY HOT during re-entry, killing any microbs onboard.

    --

  • It is a money problem, since both would require a tremendous amount of fuel, probably more than Russia had money for (both getting the fuel and getting it up there). Check Jim Oberg's site about the impracticability of launching things into the sun [jamesoberg.com].
  • The MIR fell to earth last night, crashing without incdent into the Pacific ocean- which is a bit of a shock for anyone still inside.

    I still remember the advice my father gave me: Never get in anything Russian-made with an airlock." [ridiculopathy.com]

  • It was cancelled, somewhere around $15,299, but I had the foresight to do a screen capture [dragonswest.com] for the benefit of those who missed it. Please note, I was not the CmdrTaco_bids_a_million, I was much cheeper with my bid. :)

    --

  • A Billion is a thousand million, not a million million. A billion is also known in certain parts of the world as a milliard. $1*10^9, not $1*10^12

    The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196

  • It did look a little funny, but I concluded that the camera was pointed straight up at the pieces as they moved by.

    Er... Well, y'know. You can't make an omelette without um... destroying a forest. Or something.

  • Yahoo! had this pic (Score:5)

    by NonSequor ( 230139 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @03:35AM (#345154) Journal
    Here. [yahoo.com] Pretty good picture of Mir coming down in flaming chunks.

    Er... Well, y'know. You can't make an omelette without um... destroying a forest. Or something.

  • Well now Paco Rabanne's last chance to see his predictions [scarysquirrel.org] come true have vanished in the Pacific. I want my money back for me lucky charms Paco!

  • Wonder what the next Mir story would be ? (Score:5)

    by SirFlakey ( 237855 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @03:43AM (#345160) Homepage
    "Mir, after successfully entering the earth athmosphere and crashing into the ocean has resurfaced and is on a direct collision course with Tokyo (which holds a patent on catastrophic dinosaur distruction)"
    --
  • One of my network servers is named Mir, others are named after the Apollo Lunar Landers (LEM's): i.e. Eagle, Intrepid, Aquarius, Antares, Falcon & Orion. Now all these spacecraft have something in common: They all did their jobs as they were designed and intended to do, some even went far above and beyond the call of duty (Aquarius and Mir). They all were intentionally discarded at the end of their missions. All my namesake servers are still on duty and running well, however ;-)

    I guess I must be a true nerd, because as Mir was burning up in the atmosphere, I felt like crying.
  • The auction [ebay.com] for the piece of mir has now been hit up by a troll or two....

    and also, someone [ebay.com] has a sense of humor.....

  • Enough with the taco's already. (Score:3)

    by minus23 ( 250338 ) on Friday March 23, 2001 @03:15AM (#345172)
    If in 25 years Mir is mentioned along with a footnote to Taco Bell... then we (as Americans) have done a great evil.

  • Space fungus...

    Which explains the origins of Techno and Rap music! Brain eating space fungii...
  • I don't know what media says - I tend to ignore it. But this event gives me a sence of loss and sadness. Most of my concious life I lived with knowledge, that up there there is "Mir". Now it is gone and not much is left. I did not view it as a part of communist Russia, I view it as a proud achievement of russian people and "Mir. I'll go drown my sorrow in vodka (guess stereotypes were right).
  • In reading some articles and watching some of the news stories about MIR on TV it's become apparent that the Russians are looking upon this event as a solemn moment. With this being one of the few remnants of communist Russia, they view it as the end of the successful Russia, the Russia which rivaled the United States in it's space program. Being as I'm not Russian, I'm curious to see if there are any Russian slashdot readers that can confirm or shed some light on the mood in Russia. Part of me can see the logic behind what the media is saying but part of me sees some sensationalism as well.

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  • It depends on the pieces in question, what it's made out of, what the shape is, so on and so forth... However, with this particular auction... posted not even half an hour after splash-down, able to get information from this fisherman that found the piece, but no photos (at the prices their asking for, I think they could have afforded the ship-to-shore link for a quick modem transfer), and, last but not least, was found "between Austrailia and New Zealand" when it really came down way on the other side of New Zealand. But oh NO, this auction is perfectly legit...

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