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Mir Likely To Be Deorbited [Updated]
Decibel writes: "It seems that Mir's fungal infection is soon to be the least of its problems. Unless $7-10 million can be raised in the next few days, Mir will be de-orbited some time after its 15-year anniversary in February 2001. MirCorp has been financing the operation of the outpost since the Russian government abandoned it last year, but they've run out of money as well. To make matters worse, unless the russian government (or someone else) comes up with $60 million to make two final missions to Mir, it will be an uncontrolled reentry. Of course, if any of that fungus survives reentry, it could be a moot point anyway. :)" But what about the Destination Mir teevee show?! Surely NBC has 7 or 10 million to toss in the pot, considering they've already paid more than that for rights to the show.
[Updated 3 Oct 2000 21:30 GMT by timothy] funk_phenomenon writes: "To add another story to the Mir fire, James Cameron (the man who directed Terminator 2 and Titanic) is planning to stay on the space station. He has already undergone medical tests at the Russian Institute for Medical and Biological Problems and received a go ahead. Cameron went to see the Titanic and he made a movie; maybe he plans the same?"
One of the long-standing complaints of the ISS consortium is how Energia and the Russian space agency have continued to support Mir while they have allowed deadlines for the ISS to slip. It would perhaps be advisable for the ISS to come up with the funds to de-orbit the facility--if for no other reason than because it'd be a cheap (only $60 mil) way to rid the program of a major distraction, and doing so would probably save them money in the long run.
UBU
Heck, I've had more advanced lifeforms evolve in my fridge and I live alone. I'll clean it when they demand equal rights.
It's worse than that: if the Russians don't keep making payments to the Inertial Bank, Isaac Newton is going to foreclose on Mir's kinetic energy, and then he's going to use its potential energy to pay off all of the other investors.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
And kill the bacteria with an industrial version? Or a series: Mr. Clean goes to Mir! Mynn the Museless
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
Then you'd get sued by the Russians for taking apart the piece of spaceship that crashed into your house and writing drivers for it.
come for the naked robots, stay for the zombies
Maybe this would be an excellent opportunity for Desenex to do some advertising! They could send up a guy to fumigate the place with spray powder and then put a big banner outside. "Desenex saved MIR!"
That would rock
I'm on a chair.
Why not scrounge up a couple million, and make some scientists come up with a quick and dirty way to set Mir down on the Moon without breaking it too much. If they can set it down without breaking it, they will have shelter on the surface of the moon for future missions.
Also, that way, a part of history gets preserved forever, even if it does end up in a few pieces.
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What color does fungi and rust burn?
VA Linux should buy MIR and raffle it off to someone who joins OSDN. They could paint it green and Geeks in Space could truly be Geeks _IN_ Space.
OT, but do you think the mold on MIR is from a leftover piece of Pizza Hut pizza?
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
Is that fungi internal or external? How would they deal with it? Or is that the main mission the astronauts are training for?
"Comarade Miyagi, are you sure this is really astronaut training?"
"Tat tat! I promise teach spacemanship, you promise obedience. Now, once again. Spray Lysol, wipe off. Spray Lysol, wipe off."
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
Instead of a show where the winner gets sent to Mir, how about having one (especially for those of us who hate these kinds of 'fad' shows) where people are stuck all over the world in Mir's projected descent ring, with the loser having to stand outside with a catcher's mitt?
Better yet, since they seem so concerned by the ratings, and most of us hate them, why not populate the projected path with executives from TV networks and advertising agencies? I'd sit down to watch, hell, I'd even *pay* good money to see *that*!
So why will not having cash in the bank tomorrow suddenly make it plunge into the atmosphere? Is someone going to unglug the extension cord to Earth? Are the space landlords going to evict them? Is galactic collections going to show up and reposses their oxy generation unit?
All spacecraft suffer orbital drag from gravitational and magnetic anomalies in the body they're orbiting, friction with the upper atmosphere/interstellar medium, solar flares...
Every "stable" orbit will eventually decay unless the orbiting body is captured by another one passing by. Skylab's orbit decayed in a relatively short time back in the 70s -- I think back then a lot of the mechanisms weren't well-understood. Many satellites carry maneuvering fuel to extend their orbital life, but they eventually run out of fuel and de-orbit as well. If a critical satellite is stranded in an orbit that's about to start reaching the fringes of the ionosphere, sometimes they send the Shuttle up to tow it back out.
Basically, Mir is out of gas and coasting to a stop, just as any vehicle would.
-- Old Man Kensey
Let's take a look:
MIR
Andromedia Strain
Makes you wonder just bit... :)
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Segmentation Fault ( core dumped )
1) Falling back to earth should kill any bacteria, fungus, virus or whatever else is on there. Perhaps a few prions or other proteines and organic matter might survive, forget about living organisms
2) The fungus was terrestrial anyway. How do you think it got there? Read the article on the fungus, they said most of it was penecillium and other common fungi.
The only reason that they are so much of a problem on mir is the enclosed atmosphere. They build up fast. remember....these are things that originally adapted to grow, and produce spores...enough spores to spread on earth. Now take all those spores from each generation of fungus...and keep them in a tight enclosed space....add some moisture in the air...very little competition for resources.
Of course, as a bonus....I wonder what the average inside temp is on the station...if its between 90-98F...the fungus will have a feild day.
Scientists here on earth believe that fungi are mutating into new species faster than they can be found and catergorized. After so many years in space, I would imagine their fungus have already mutated quite alot - add the excessive radiation - and it should be quite interesting.
I, for one, hope that they kept samples.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Astronauts visiting Mir de-swallowed their space-lunch when they smelled the Mir fungus.
A plane was de-flighted today, causing the de-functioning of over 100 passengers...
Sure, NBC has big bucks now, but when I'm a contestant on Destination Mir, the TV show,
and I come back and sue them for space-alien toe fungus disease, see how they laugh then!
(my company- provided insurance policy covers diseases I contract while traveling, but I wonder if they'd find a way out of that one!)
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
Somebody had better warn Cameron before he visits next summer. Don't you hate it when you plan a vacation months in advance, and then your hotel gets deorbited?
MSK
So, instead of getting there by rocket, they'll get there by submarine. Though perhaps less glorious than space, the environments are equally dangerous. The slightest error will get you killed instantly.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I mean, Mir crashing down onto Redmond, Washington, just has a strange sort of appeal to it, doesn't it?
Maybe we could hold a bake sale.
It excludes things like drag, and other minimal effects. The main instability in the orbits results from the fact that not only the Earth is pulling on the satellite/station, but the moon, sun, and every other celestial body (to some degree) as well. This creates varying gravitational potentials which change depending on the positions of all the parties involved (Gravity is dependent on 1/r^2).
Now, the space junk just happens to be stuff that is in a relatively stable orbit. It may stay up for weeks, months or years depending on it's velocity and position relative to the earth. After it's orbit decays to a certain point it will either plummet to the earth or take off into space depending on how far it's initial orbit was from the earth. It's kind of funny, there are actually telecommunication satellites that went haywire and are now whipping around in the geosynchronous orbit range, requiring everyone to be on the lookout for possible collisions (small probability however).
There is actually an MIT lab that tracks most of the large debris using a radar telescope in conjunction with the defense department. Try tracking thousands of objects that are only a meter wide in the vast expanse of possible earth orbits!
The real problem with all of this junk is that it is nigh impossible to propagate the orbits. Since all these factors are subtle and accumulate over time it makes it quite a task to make proper orbit integrators. After you include the difficult to model drag effect of re-entry, it makes finding out where MIR is going to land a shot in the dark.
As for MIR's orbit, I believe it is in low earth orbit, and therefor it would also be moving around the Earth.
UBU
They should host a "Survivor" series on Mir. Imagine the consequences of being "expelled" from the "Island".....
Burn Hollywood Burn
What if MiR de-orbits, and the fungus survives, and attackes metals and plastics, and grows and adapts and eventually becomes nympho-vuluptuous naked amazon women?!?!?!
.sigs??
LET MIR DE-ORBIT!!!!
-- Don't you hate it when people comment on other people's
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!