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Mir To Crash Into Pacific
b0z writes "According to an article on Yahoo! the Russians are planning to dump Mir into the ocean in February. According to the article, the $40 million that MirCorp has raised is not enough to save Mir. Also, it is noted that Mir has been in use much longer than the engineers that made it intended." Of course, I'll believe this when I "see" it - the saga of Mir continues.
will be Kenny McCormick.
And Halloween is coming.
(You better look up, kid!)
No, you haven't take any thermo or bio classes.
Note the volume of water in the ocean. Note mass of space station. Note delta T when station hits water.
Obviously, if there happens to be any sea life around where Mir hits, its not going to be around for long. But we're talking about the middle of the Pacific Ocean here. The concentration of life is not high. The amount of life killed or affected by Mir's landing will be low. Mir will have no lasting effect on the surrounding ocean. Any temperature elevation will be unnoticeable after a few days, probably a few hours.
As for warm water from factories effecting ecosystems:
In those cases, we are talking about lots of warm water, over a long time, into rather shallow and confined bays with high concentrations of life. Big difference.
... and have them think we're back in the dark ages?
"My $DEITY z234asdfat, look at what they live in! Lets avoid that solar system!"
or alternatively
"Shooting space junk is no test of a true warrior!"[1]
[1] Star Trek V reference
Assuming we trust Russian electronics (tubes anyone?) to properly calculate the correct trajectory to drop it into the ocean and not NYC or Paris (well, paris anyway ).
I hope you don't call yourself a geek too. If you were a geek you'd remember skylab, and the big chunks of it that landed on australia.
If they just leave it to die, it will die by falling to earth on it's own. Better that they aim it away from land then let it fall wherever it happens to fall.
What he needs to read is a physics book. The cost of launching something the size of mir out of earth orbit would make even the biggest environmentalist say "just drop the fucker in the ocean."
Ill pay a million pesos to shoot down Mir with a high powered missle. It would be a lot cooler than just sinking the poor moldy basterd into the ocean.
That might make a nice light show, until the millions of little pieces that are left whizzing around in orbit start taking out satellites...
Anyway how much damage can something that big can do on impact?
None, unless they are WAY off target. The pacific ocean isn't exactly a small target.
so we all have read about the space fungis that is munch munching away on the mir. As some of this lucious fungi is inside the mir (ie cosomonauts said they don't want reach into certain places) it seems that some will survive the re-rntry process.
Is anyone else the least bit concerned that we are bring back some uber fungis to earth.
I can see in a few decades the earth slowly being munched up.
msew
Actually, most people thought that the earth flyby of the Cassini probe was the object of Nostradamus' prophecy.
One Microsoft Way - Redmond VA
...
I pity whoever in Virginia has this address
I don't. C'mon, who builds a house at "One Microsoft Way"? It's like living on "Ethnic Cleansing Avenue"; you have to be expecting enraged mobs with torches and pitchforks at your front door eventually anyways.
Or, perhaps, Atari.
Do you have a
ashes to ashes, crust to crust ;-)
___
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Shouldn't you be quoting Reuters, the original source of the article, rather than Yahoo! which regularly runs their content? Here is the original link to the story:
s cience&Repository=SCIENCE_REP&RepositorySt oryID=%2Fnews%2FIDS%2FScience%2FSCIENCE-SPACE-MIR- DC_TXT.XML
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=
Don't you mean "since the 1802"?
Just junk food for thought...
One question though? Is dumping a fungi/mold harvesting ground of that size into the ocean really such a good idea? Wouldn't it be better to destroy the thing in space or whatnot, so none of the perhaps mutated and strange molds end up in our oceans? Or maybe we should add this to that list of ways for the world to end... ;)
The USSR was not a third world country, by any streach of the imagination.
>Any hints as to what the
>outcome of all this will be?
A humongous fungus among us.
Damn my eyes!
When I first read the title I saw:
"Mir to crash into Public!"
I suppose that would be a showstopper for one of the FOX disaster shows...
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Mir's time has come and gone, and come, and gone again, ad nausium....
The thing is *infested* with fungus! It's old and crotchety and my goddess, can you imagine the insurance waivers those NBC survior participants would have to sign? Heck, they would have to decimate a small forest just for the paper required to print it on!
*truck pulls in*
*beep, beep, beep*
"back it on up here! just drop it off here in the front yard and go back for the second load!"
"Mister Swihiggens, We'll need you to sign a few forms of course.. standard stuff really.."
I'm glad they at least came up with enough money to bring it down safely...
ISTR reading comics many moons ago, about MIR coming down on our heads... not so funny when it became possible.
Run. I like water. Push My rutabaga.
Salvage rights usually go to the first person/company that can bring an object from the wreck to the surface. Governments supercede this sometimes, though. For example, the US Navy and US Air Force still claim ownership of all sunken aircraft. The Air Force is a little more forgiving, but the Navy will take whatever aircraft you raise from the bottom. If you don't notify them, raise a wreck, restore it, and then they find out--too bad. They'll take the plane and you'll be out all that $.
Even if the Russian Government doesn't exercise whatever rights they have on the wreck you can be sure that there will be a LOT of salvage boats in the general area of the return point in February, ready to move in as soon as possible.
Actually, it could be fun:
;) OR, you could say (after the winner is up there of course) congrats for winning your very own de-orbiting space station.
;)
The opportunity of a lifetime: Mission to Mir... one way ticket. You go up in our shuttle, you come down in Mir.
Even better: Mir Survivor. send nine morons to populate Mir. Whom ever survives the impact wins.
Anything for a TV show I guess
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
Long live the next generation of <a href="http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/index-n.html">sh oddily-produced lowest bidder space hardware!</a>
I got a great idea, why don't they give ME the 40 million and we can plan a destination "my apartment." I'll setup an obsticle course and give away fabulous prizes, like old chinese food, and that cup 'o yogurt that's been in the fridge for 6 months, it's got it's own space fungus. I've even got a vicious domesticated space dog that they can take pictures with. It'll be great.
Reminds me of the Kinison bit:
"I'm like anyone else on this planet -- I'm very moved by world hunger. I see the same commercials, with those little kids, starving, and very depressed. I watch those kids and I go, 'Fuck, I know the FILM crew could give this kid a sandwich!' There's a director five feet away going, 'DON'T FEED HIM YET! GET THAT SANDWICH OUTTA HERE! IT DOESN'T WORK UNLESS HE LOOKS HUNGRY!!!' But I'm not trying to make fun of world hunger. Matter of fact, I think I have the answer. You want to stop world hunger? Stop sending these people food. Don't send these people another bite, folks. You want to send them something, you want to help? Send them U-Hauls. Send them U-Hauls, some luggage, send them a guy out there who says, 'Hey, we been driving out here every day with your food, for, like, the last thirty or forty years, and we were driving out here today across the desert, and it occurred to us that there wouldn't BE world hunger, if you people would LIVE WHERE THE FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT'S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? IT'S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! GET YOUR STUFF, GET YOUR SHIT, WE'LL MAKE ONE TRIP, WE'LL TAKE YOU TO WHERE THE FOOD IS! WE HAVE DESERTS IN AMERICA -- WE JUST DON'T LIVE IN THEM, ASSHOLES!"
--From an appearance on Rodney Dangerfield's "It's Not Easy Being Me," 1984.
People are worried about the warm water and steam that run into the oceans from factories (this is the clean stuff - just temperature changes). The temperature changes kill all sorts of fish within a huge range of the factories.
Now, imagine a space station crashing through the atmosphere, heating up to insane temperatures, and falling into the middle of the ocean, where the water temperature stays mostly constant. If you don't think that is going to have a measurable effect on a large chunk of water, you haven't taken any thermo or bio classes...
-- toolie
What happens to the brave men and women competing to travel to Mir? Are they going to go down with it as part of the prize?
Speak truth to power.
Who says that it couldn't be auctioned off, anyway? Some VERY rich person could get it from Russia and pay to have it kept up...
Don't you think we could follow the event live and direct through the eyes of some earth observation satellites (could somebody name a few ?) ? Kewl huh ? ;)
For once we could witness the amount of garbage we dare to throw into the ocean.
--
gdon
Of course, by the time it drops through our atmosphere there won't be that much of it left to do much harm.
... I've got a question. We've all heard the story that if a space vehicle doesn't enter the atmosphere at precisely the right angle, it'll bounce off like a stone skipping over water and fly off into the endless void of space. Why don't they do that with Mir (or any other spacecraft that have outlived their usefulness)? Seems a lot safer than trying to do a controlled crash.
I'm sure there's a reason, just want to know what it is...
GargGarg
Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
What about it? In fact one could say what radiation?
Am I missing somehting here?
What hazardous material are we talking about?
I'm not saing that we shouldn't think about the enviroment but blataint scare-mongering does more harm than good.
~ppppppppö
Ill pay a million pesos to shoot down Mir with a high powered missle. It would be a lot cooler than just sinking the poor moldy basterd into the ocean.
Anyway how much damage can something that big can do on impact?
Gimme some of that sweet, sweet crack.
I wonder what's going to happen to the $40 million they raised if they're going just going to go ahead and dump the Mir anyways?
ALG
I wonder what's going to happen when they intorduce that nasty metal eating fungus into our environment?
ALG
We can point the jets at the sun all we want, but there's still that whole gravity thing to contend with. It's how objects either stay in orbit or fall back to earth.
It would take a lot more ooompf to get Mir to the sun than it would be to push it past critical orbit decay. Consider, getting to the sun would require competing not only with our gravity, but the moon's, venus' and likely Jupiter's. It's not just point it at the sun and let fly. Gravity has a nifty way of making satelites slingshot around larger bodies.
So what would we need? A booster to get it out of Earth orbit with enough juice left over for something of that mass to navigate though the solar system without orbiting something else. Not trivial. And probably more that $40 million and much riskier than the current plan.
--Humpty Dumpty was pushed!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
ru551an-h4x0r login: 31337
/sbin/firethrusters --west 2m & /sbin/firethrusters --south 1m &
password: ******
$ telnet maincomputer.mir.space.mil.ru 666
SpaceBackOriffice password: ****
motd: descent in progress. bye to all.
# nohup
# nohup
# killall eggdrop
logout
--
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
whoops - typo ... sorry
--
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
They won't fit: (think as metric vs. us/uk system and 220V vs 110V (actually mir uses 48V or something))
--
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
What flight computers? That thing's been hanging in space since 1802 or so.
I hope by western you mean specifically a canadian reactor (nothing is better in that industry).
Rod Taylor
Mir's orbit, already decaying naturally because of atmospheric drag, will be reduced to 80 km (50 miles), causing the space station to enter the dense layers of the atmosphere where most of it will burn up. The remains of the station will then fall in a sparsely populated region of the Indian Ocean.
"Everything will go according to the laws of physics: the station will burn and break apart," Blagov said, adding that the entire operation would take several days.
Several days? Is this something that will be visible from the ground? That would look uber-cool.
Because you just handed a fat cheque to Mark Burnett (Producer of Survivor) to produce a show that involves MIR.
"If a space station drops into the ocean when nobody's around, does it make a sound?"
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
.. I'd hate to think of the diastrous results that coud occur if Mir were allowed to fall onto the head of a small child in Colorado in an orange hooded coat. Next thing you know, the towm might come down with pink eye.
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"Defenestration" is to throw out of a window; what's a word for throwing 'Windows' out of something?
I don't buy it. By picking a site in the South Pacific, the Russians *know* that there will be *something* left of the Mir even after re-entry. I can't imagine that every part of the space station will get hot enough to disentegrate every single spore of the critters. All it takes is one ... and a whole new population would form.
Ever read "Mother of Storms" by John Barnes? He writes about this gigantic hurricane (and smaller offspring) that wipes out most of the civilized world. The hurricane was caused by Algae blooms over the Atlantic that caused temperature inversions that had never been experienced before.
There's just no way to tell what the impacts of introducing a new life form into an existing ecosystem will be. I say, strap a rocket on the b ack of the Mir and send it to play with Voyager.
They'll send the winner to the bottom of the Pacific instead? A month aboard Mir is a month aboard Mir, after all. Assuming it crashes where it's intended to, I mean Skylab was supposed to come down in the ocean too. (But I think Skylab was completely uncontrollable at the time, unlike Mir.)
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
MirCorp has released a response to the, shall we say selective, reporting of Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov's statement here. Basically what the sensational headline "Mir To Crash Into Pacific" leaves out is "unless MirCorp can get more money." It is full of typical PR optimism, but it's obvious that Mir's fate is far from sealed, and with interest from Cameron/Tito/Burnett raising 60 million is hardly improbable.
Weren't you the kid who dropped the coke can on the sidewalk the other day and said "hey, don't worry, it's only a tiny bit of trash..." ?
Nuclear test statistics (hey, what's a little bit of junk going to matter in the oceans.. ?)
UNITED STATES--Total number of tests: 1,054
Pacific -- 106
Nevada Test Site -- 928
South Atlantic -- 3
Other nuclear sites -- 17 FORMER SOVIET UNION --Total number of tests: 715 (969 devices)
Semipalatinsk -- 456
Novaya Zemlya -- 130
Other nuclear sites -- 129
UNITED KINGDOM
--Total number of tests: 45
Nevada Test Site -- 24
Monte Bello Island -- 3
Woomera -- 2
Maralinga -- 7
Christmas Island -- 9.
CHINA
--Total number of tests: 43
FRANCE
--Total number of tests: 210.
--Tests were conducted at sites in Algeria, the Sahara Desert, North Africa, and in the South Pacific.
INDIA
--Total number of tests: 6
This stuff is up there being exposed to all kinds of gamma radiation from the sun (it's really tough sludge), so what happens if re-entry doesn't kill it? Are we really gonna bring this stuff back and drop it into the ocean? Is that really wise given the track record of introducing non-native species into habitats without predators? I mean the ocean has a lot of food for an enterprising bacteria, not to mention all the currents peices of Mir floating up on shore and bam we have a new colony of the stuff somewhere. Personally the idea of living in a world covered in a super slime doesn't appeal very much to me.
"If I were bound by all laws everywhere I'm sure I would have committed a capital crime somewhere."
What hazardous material are we talking about?
Maybe he's thinking Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG's). I'm not sure if Mir has any RTG's.
If I remembers correctly, a Lunar Module's RTG survived re-entry and is now at the bottom of the Pacific.
Yet Another Web Site
/me hopes our atmosphere will kill off the space algae ;)
http://siokaos.org/
Yes, we can trust their guidance systems. Remember when the supply module crashed into Mir? That was when they were trying to cut costs by getting the cosmonauts to do the docking guidance, rather than using their automatic guidance system. They repeated this a half dozen times in simulation, and yep, it crashed into it every time. So they went back to the automatic system, and it's delivered the supply module successfully every time.
Now, the Pacific ocean is pretty big, and if they can dock with Mir using automatic guidance, we can be pretty sure they'll guide Mir into the Pacific, even with the complication of guiding it through the upper atmosphere first.
-- "This is the Space Age, and we are Here To Go" - W.S.Burroughs
Can it really be that hard to target the biggest freakin object in our solar system?? Seems alot more ecologically safe to me. Then we don't have to worry about mutant space fungi!!!
------------------------------------------
If God Droppd Acid, Would he see People???
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Would that be with or without James Cameron on board?
because the Russians need money. This is, I think, some form of extortion. "You want to go into space? Give us a whole shitload more money than you have right given us already or we dump our space station and you don't go anywhere. Bitches."
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
However not much of anything will be left after re-entry, so it will not even be a drop in the bucket of the Pacific's ecosystems.
So what's going to happen to the planned show "Destination Mir"? well, whatever happens to it, the guy who sold the rights to the idea sure got a helluva deal. $20 million on a show that will never be filmed? Rip-off of all time, and i think he knew it...
And think about what the station will go through when it gets to the bottom of the ocean. With all that volume of seawater sitting on top of it, I'd imagine it'd break down into fairly harmless bits and pieces pretty quickly.
This makes me think... If MirCorp sells tickets to the Mir crashing into the ocean, maybe they could raise enough money to keep it up there.
Um, nevermind.
not_cub.
q='echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"';s=\';b=\\;echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"
Guess we get to see if that space fungus infesting MIR can survive re-entry.
Awww, come on.... it'll probably make a really good reef for some sea-life.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
O, the horror, O, the humanity, ad nauseum...
Sorta gives a whole new meaning to the movie title "From Russia with Love"
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
Why don't they just blow it out of orbit and aim it for the sun? That should take care of it, and won't infest us with whatever Space Fungi it is infested with.
These people need to watch 'The Andromeda Strain' before they start de-orbiting this stuff.
MIR is not built for re-entry, so it probably will be destroyed before touching the water.
Or, to borrow idea from UserFriendly's Illiad, slam it unto the RIAA office. Hmmm that would be spectacular.
Let's make a simple calculation...
1 kg costs about 5000$ (Russian price, USA price - 20000-25000$). The station must have (minimum) = living quaters + maneuver booster + control module. Science bay is not included.
The weight of each module would be about 8 ton. This brings us to about 24000 kg, times 5000$ is 120000000 (120 mil). 3 times the raised funds. But do not forget the manufacturing costs, etc. - therefore you get something like HUGE amount of money necessary. Buying MIR is MUCH CHEAPER!!!
I know the calculations are very crude, but rather true. Questions anybody?
what about Redmond, Washington?
why don't some of you clever tech guys get together and crack the flight path
there is zero chance of getting cought since it doesn't seem unlikely that the Russians could miss the Pacific
what about Redmond, Washington?
why don't some of you clever tech guys get together and crack the flight path
there is zero chance of getting cought since it doesn't seem unlikely that the Russians could the Pacific
Radioactive? "Find something more envrionmentally friendly"? Give me a break! I know I'm probably responding to an obvious troll, but Mir doesn't have anything radioactive on board. Why do you think the Russians put those big solar panels on it - to make it look cool so the Mir astronauts can cruise for chicks easier? :)
I actually think this is a cool idea! The only problem would be that you'd have to put some form of live video broadcast equipment in there (as the station would be destroyed, so you can't retrieve a video tape later).
However, the Van Allen belts means that you get a radio blackout as it comes down, so you'd miss the most interesting part of the broadcast! It's such a shame... if anyone can work out how to do it, ring up the Russians and tell them, because I for one would love to see live on-board video of the thing burning up!
I know, I'm a pyromaniac...
Space Object Falls to earth, eats plastic and metal, kills, grows expodentially?! Sound Farmiliar?! Did no one read Adromeda Strain?! Lets hope WildFire is there when you need it! :)
http://www.sciflicks.com/the_andromeda_strain/
seems like a waste to me, instead of splashing it they could dismantle and use the solar panels/fuel tanks/filtration units for the new station!
never mind the fungus, they could jettison the fungus infected metals
Atticka
No sig here...
So what if it is? It'll just starve to death.
nal 11
... least I wish I could! The entire event should be videotaped, if at all possible. It would certainly be a risk but seeing Mir burst into flames above the Pacific would be magnificent. It would also be a little ironic... "Mir's on fire!"
Hey, there are some other great examples of "alternative systems to capitalism" producing high quality technology.
Like the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Great Pyramids. In fact, it would seem that for most of history the predominate "system" was enslaving tens of thousands and working them to death in order to create your technological marvel. Who knows how it really was, but I suspect the Soviet system was a bit closer to that end of the spectrum than to our "capitalism" end. You might be able to argue that it is effective, but you're not likely to convince many that it's right or even a good way to get things done.
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
You have a very strange idea of what a "large chunk of water" is...
Stop using cars, you're killing flies. Dropping MIR into the ocean is a rare event as opposed to dumping hot water and industrial waste into coastal areas of the oceans. It's like the difference between an extraordinarily hot summer day and a change in climate. And there is much less coastal area than there is offshore ocean.
Do not forget the amount of damage that would have to be done to the ecosystem to boost MIR into a much higher orbit or even out of earth orbit. Moving enough fuel into orbit would burn a great deal of fuel in earth's atmosphere. I do agree that dangerous materials should be removed before dropping it into the ocean, though.
Wow, will NBC ever get a ratings boost from this! What a windfall... some jerk like Richard from Survivor winning the "Vacation on Mir" contest, only to be plunged to his fiery doom (and watery grave) aboard a Russian deathtrap! Take that, Richard, you bastard! Die! Die! Oh, my sweet Colleen, YOU should have won! My love for--
Wait... what? What do you mean they take the guy off first? What the hell's the point in that?
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
It began it's life as a part of the earth's crust, and so shall it be once again.
Umm, effectively forever. The ocean is very large, and the amount of space junk in our atmosphere is small, comparitively. Besides, people are complaining all the time about junk in space, so you have two options: Hmm... I would disagree that the oceans can continue to absorb all our crap... it might be big but it is a fragile environment and we've already added enough crap without dropping all the junk in space into them... Apart from that what fuel cells does Mir use? Anyway if we must junk it in the ocean first send a crew upto it to strip it of any dangerous or reusable parts then dump it... Just hope you don't eat a fish thats got poluted by some crap that isn't supposed to be in the ocean.
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
Why don't they just add it to the Inernational Space Station? At the very least they'd have more closet space :)
:T:R:A:N:S:
...they put a camera inside the thing and filmed the effects of the crash & burn? Kind of like when they crash tested that airliner many moons ago, just to see what really happens. They could sell it as a pay-per-view! Maybe it's just me, but I think that would be pretty bitchin! :-)
---
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Gort! Klatu Barata Nikto!
The Pacific Ocean didn't have enough crap in it, now we get some communistic crap in it.
I am currently not obliged to divulge that information as it might compromise the agents in the field
Yes! What we need is a space hotel! Zero-G honeymoon suite and all. Not too sure about the swimming pool though.
Seriously, how much longer before this is a commercial proposition? It might take around $500 million dollars, maybe a bit more (knowing space contractors), but how many people would be prepared to pay $1m for a week or two? I mean, if that many people want to go in an aging Soviet death-trap, who wouldn't want a sleek, marble-lined Hilton in orbit?
On the other hand, the cost of space travel isn't falling that fast, and most millionaires seem to be either reclusive Howard Hughes types, or just incredibly boring ("Space? I'd rather go to Norway.") So I guess I'll just go to Switzerland for my holidays (no atmosphere).
If you're a jock, inflict some pain / If you're a nerd then use your brain - DAPHNE AND CELESTE
On the other hand, and I'm not defending the old system, they're worse off since 1990 (life expectancy down 10 years, vastly increased crime, no rise in the standard of living, etc.) I guess the moral is, even a 3rd world country can get a space program if it wants it enough.
If you're a jock, inflict some pain / If you're a nerd then use your brain - DAPHNE AND CELESTE
A MirCorp press statement says that not all hope is lost. If they get the money together, the Russians may not dump the station. p.s. anyone know why my anchor tag didn't work?
that's why I thought my anchor tag wasn't working...
Companies already spend on the order of $120M to build huge skyscrapers in Manhattan... why not spend 120M to shoot an exclusive environment up into space?
Obviously, the ROI on a skyscraper is much easier to digest, but if you've got enough people who want to spend the bank to get a week in space, you could pull your $120M investment back in a few years.
-C
--
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
We were talking about the fungus developing on MIR. What about it?
Despite all its shortcomings, Mir is a remarkable piece of engineering to be able to last this long, and is also proof that alternative systems to capitalism can really produce high quality technology. It's far more
impressive than Skylab ever was, and it's been home to the longest human space missions in history. To just let it crash into the ocean is a tragedy--you'd think enough people would be able to spare the money to save
it. Incidentally, I wonder if it would have had a far better fate under the communist government.
Just because their space station worked dosn't mean you can extend that to the Russian political situation. In general the life the average Russian under the regime wasn't that good. Massive shortages of consumer goods, poverty, crime, housing problems, political corruption/oppression. Oh yeah but a they had a good space station.
I am sure if the US turned all their ecconomic energies into one particular area of interest at the expense of all else they could have done better too. I just like living free instead of under a dictatorship.
Respond to s
There might be a way to do something like that.
Perhaps we could reduce the size of junk and produce parcels that could then be blasted into a decaying orbit with hyrodgen and then vaporize when the come down.
Respond to s
Artifican impliments can actually help an ecosystem greatly. Look at coral deposits on oil rig platforms in the Louisana delta where there were no great reefs because of various factors but now there is thriving life there. Pretty interesting use of materials.
Respond to s
The Russian space program was more of an effort to play political games than to accomplish space exploration. Why would you need people in space for long periods of time? Well what if you wanted to conduct an almost unstoppable senario of nuclear war. Now how easy is it to remove say a command and control system in orbit hundreds of miles above earth anyway?
The impression I got about MirCorp was that it was a venture that was trying to sap Russian resources away from the ISS and it's construction system. Really bad form when you try to cheat the government and their international contracts.
Respond to s
With their aim, aiming for VA might get it on target.
The truth shall set you free!
What kind of precautions has the USAF taken to ensure that 'l337 haxors don't hack the flight computers on Mir and target Redmond with it.
No matter what you think of Microsoft, you shouldn't try to kill the people there, but good luck getting that message out to fervent Linuxtriods.
I hope the USAF is on standby with those F15's with ASAT's on, cuz the Russian computer security is probably easily hacked.
Considering earlier reports that fungus is growing wild on Mir, including the outside surfaces, do we really want this thing dropped back into the ecosphere?
Radiation = mutation = every science fiction horror movie you ever saw.
Sure, burn will wipe out most of it, but what about the fungus growing inside? Anyone willing to bet it isn't like that Ringworld version that eats room-temp superconductor for lunch?
So, how can I protect my room temperature superconductors? Would sealing them in a ziplock help?
Thanks,
Let's get somebody out there to the 'crash site' with a camcorder, and stream a live broadcast so everybody can see the final moments of ancient space history.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Since the Russians have had the same "good" record with their space program as we have, is anybody open to starting a pool to see where Mir comes down?
Do I hear Washington?
Silicon Valley?
I'll take Bosnia for a dollar.
Anyone else?
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
Russian sub K219 off the eastern seaboard back in the 80s (almost detonated the nuclear missiles in the sub), then the Kursk in the Barents. Now Mir. And I thought that the original U.S. Mercury "spam in a can" project was really improvised. The Russian military/space agency really has whittled the act of risking the lives of their crewmen in catastrophic crashes down to an outright artform.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
What if this starts up an incident like that portrayed in "The Andromeda Strain"? It might be MUCH worse than the movie, since there was only a grain of space crud lodged in the satellite, and Mir is overrun with the fungus. We'd better quarantine the entire Pacific Rim if we're going to survive this.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
However, let's hope that this re-entry doesn't end up like a previous one did: when Skylab re-entered, it burned up over Australia. A visiting American boy brought back a piece of it.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
The USSR was not a third world country, by any streach of the imagination.
Correct. By defination, (the US's defination, of course) the US and it's immediate allies were the 'first world', whereas the USSR and it's immediate allies were the 'second world'.
It was the more or less unallied, developing nations that were defined as 'third world'.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Well, the question to ask is, did they already film the Mir TV show? Or is it still in production? Perhaps the network will toss in just enough cash to keep it going until they need to. Never underestimate the networks :)
Cynicism is just realism at a higher sampling-rate.
The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
That includes the much-delayed space station modules, folks.
www.ridiculopathy.com
You may want to rephrase that to:
"If one more person tells me 'Mir is dead' again I'll start suspecting an Amiga involvement.
I want the fire back.
... the fungus! watch, they'll go to salvage it, and a large flag with the fungus mascot will be flying, and there isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
VOTE BUSH
That'll be one hell of a ride for the participants in NBC's upcoming Destination Mir.
And capitalist economies have never had shortages? How many times have farmers in the U.S./Canada burned crops or poured milk down the drain in order to reduce supply and increase prices. At the same time as people are starving (a la Great Depression). Political corruption is what caused the problems in Soviet Russia. Not communism, but corruption; the two are not mutually inclusive.
While it is true to say the conditions in Soviet Russia were worse than the Western countries, please do note that the conditions were much, much worse before the Communists took over. In the 70 years that the Communists were in power the Russian economy grow faster the Western economies, and the standard of living increased faster. Russia didn't catch up, but they made definite progress relative to the Western countries.
How true. When the czars were in power Russia was a second class nation, the intellectual backwater of Europe. The Communists took Russia and made it into a powerhouse of production, education, science and culture. It wasn't a 'first-rate' country in terms of standard of living, but it was a vast improvement. Since 1991 the capitalists have once again taken Russia down into the abyss.
What if they infest our ocean's waters?! What if they breed a new race of SUPER FUNGI that CONSUME HUGE METAL HULLED SHIPS IN HOURS?!
I'm scared. *whimper*
If so, it could theoretically stay up indefinitely.
That may be true, the only problem is: What is a stronger motivation for excellence? Prestige or greed?
I would bet on prestige. The world runs on prestige, not money. Money is just another means to acquire prestige (and thus, get the girls!).
-------------- It's not the winning that counts, it's the taking apart.
Yes it is sad but the new must give way to the old as King Arthur says. But the suggested method of selling parts as suveniors also works fine. And then after centuries someone might just get rich selling it as super-antique( its already antique).
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
I thought that Mir was supposed to fall dow on Paris last August ??? Remember Paco Rabanne's predictions ?
Well it's never too late! What if the Russian teams compute the coordinates in inches and centimeters ? The end of the world is near... Fear. Fear.
É que os desafinados também têm um coração
Oh Please. I would like to see it dropped on your head, to see if your brain is as tiny as I calculate.
I guess some moderators don't have a sense of humor.
On the flipside... I could be telling the truth, with no evidence.
I guess you'll all find out when the big thing hits the earth!
Fix?
**********
If it says "Troll" on this post,
I successfully annoyed a nerd herd!
My Vote's On This Doofus
great comedy company.
I once heard a story about the command economy of the old Soviet Union, where a shoe factory was ordered by beurocrats above to produce a shoe quota of ten thousand shoes. So the manager thought, "hmmm, what uses the least leather? Childrens shoes. I'll make them all the same type, to save costs, left footed only. I'll order enought leather for 10000 men, and *if* I get it, I'll sell the surpluss on the blackmarket."
This is why command economies are awful. What you need is a mixture - government to provide overall direction, and commercial companies to get the work done quickly and efficiently.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
Umm, effectively forever. The ocean is very large, and the amount of space junk in our atmosphere is small, comparitively. Besides, people are complaining all the time about junk in space, so you have two options:
1)Junk in space
2)Junk in oceans
I'd rather go with option 2, 1 would hinder our development. As to blasting it into geosynch, there is only a limited amount of space in geosynch orbit as it is for commercial satellites. In fact the Chinese and Sky corporation have been squabbling about a slot up there for ages.
And, it would be phenomanally expensive to blast Mir up to a 36000km altitude, it's only at a few hundred at the moment. It's much cheaper, safer and easier to just dump it in the ocean, all told.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
The difference is that the capitalist countries have a large infastructure of commercial companies to help out with the space program, like Lockheed, Boeing, BAe etc.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
Well, fellow freeserve user (well done for getting online btw), I didn't mean all of our crap. Just the extraterrestrial stuff. Although I do think our environment is more robust than people may believe, I do agree it is unwise to take the risk. But when it comes to space junk, which is mostly inert and there can only be a few thousand(?) tons of it anyway, I think we can make an exception. Sorry if I was not clearer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
Well, if you're a fan of James Cameron's TV series Dark Angel, you'll remember he has a great fondness for his heroine being perched atop a ruined Space Needle. Since he's in the running for tickets to go to Mir, my thought is he's either:
A. putting in cameras to get cool shots as Mir plunges to earth;
B. hacking the on-board computers to retarget Mir at the Space Needle (although KOMO-TV would be a better target a block away, since you could get cool photos from the Needle on impact with a nice fireball, plus bonus points for taking out Ken Schram); and/or
C. hacking (again) so that it lands in Puget Sound, where he can get some shots as it impacts.
Why? Hey, when you have that much money, you might as well. Rumors that Bill G or Paul A of MSFT are helping him with the ultimate hacker prank are just that - rumors.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Ukraine has announced Chernobyl's final shutdown date: December 15 (this year). The EU funding did finally come through.
It wasn't a nostalgic reason at all. It was purely economic (having to generate 6% of Ukraine's electricity).
-- Anne Marie
This is a ludicrous suggestion. They bring the effing thing down while they still can do so in a controlled manner. I don't like the idea of all the toxic crud that ends up in earth's atmosphere while the Mir burns up, but then again there's probably just as much unsavory space crud coming down from meteors. And I think I'd rather have the Mir burn up and be dumped somewhere reasonably safe, than under uncontrolled circumstances where big burning lumps of it could fall in populated areas.
The Mir (and the ISS, and the Orbiters) are technically not really in Space. They're in orbit, in the uttermost fringest of the outer layers of the Earth's atmosphere. (The last time any manned vessel really went into space was Apollo 17 in 1972.)
The Mir is in an unstable low-altitude orbit that decays over time with the gentle drag of the ultrathin atmosphere excerts its force. Over time, the Mir will slow down, and lose altitude, and ultimately burn up. To prevent this from happening and keep the Mir in orbit in the operating years, they sent up supply ships every few months, which would dock with the Mir, and use the supply ship rocket engine to speed the Mir up a bit and nudge it up towards the intended orbit. This is expensive, and appearently the commercial venture that tried to save Mir, couldn't come up with enough cash to pay for such a supply ship. Add to that, the Mir's gyrodyne attitude control systems will fail eventually, so it's better to dump the Mir while there's still a few systems working on it.
All the people-carrying space junk we got cycling around up there today, is firmly stuck in Earth's gravity well, and it would require massive boosters to toss any of them out into deep space. Add to that, none of the space station hardware was designed to get accelerated with such force in a connected and installed configuration. To lob Mir into space, you'd have to disassemble it and strap a separate booster onto each segment, which is a prohibitively expensive and utterly pointless idea.
To get the CSM+CM+LM Apollo stacks sent from earth orbit into the lunar approach trajectory, they used the massive Saturn V third stage booster. The Space Shuttle and the Mir are a lot heavier than that old Apollo stack, and we have no such booster engines today to send into orbit.
That's why the Mir will be dumped now that commercial funding of its upkeep failed. There simply isn't any safe alternative.
You're thinking of the Apollo scenario where you have a high velocity inbound vehicle coming from outer space and having to penetrate the Earth's atmosphere at precisely the right angle so as to slow down safely but not skip off the atmosphere or plunge too steep like a meteor. Forget all that! The Mir isn't in outer space. It isn't coming in at an angle. It's in low earth orbit. The Mir is moving nowhere as fast as the inbound Apollo vehicles used to, though it will of course still burn prettily like an Iridium satellite as it falls out of the sky. ;)
It looks as if we have some "red syndrome" going on here. It's OK, the Russians will no more likely land the mir on your trailer park as they will on any other good christian folk in America. Therefore, you're pretty safe because America seems to have an excess of the sort. Why, just the other day I gave liquor money to the bum on the corner in the name of the white Jesus. I assume, of course, that you worship the white Jesus with the rest of us. Rest easy, for we are a numerous and widely distributed target. My advice, don't sweat the Mir; your trailer park will live on.
Yep... You're right... They need to send something up with the 40 million that will push Mir off into space.. Toss it at the moon or something. The stupid fungus is originally from Earth and has mutated from all the radiation. I sincerely doubt that the heat is going to kill all of it from reentry. When it hits the ocean, either the salt water is going to kill it... or it's going to flourish... If it lands in deep water... Geeze.. Do you want that growing on the bottom of the ocean.. I mean.. it had no problems growing in space... Maybe it'll take over small lakes and ponds.. Like in Creepshow.. Go swimming and the green rug eats you.
It hasn't been ruled out, but the price figure is now 2.5 times the previously "agreed" figure. This may be an atempt to get things closer to true costs or bribery. In the FSU you never know.
It'd cost much more to get MIR out of Earth orbit. Look at the cost of apollo relative to the size of Mir.
If they boosted it to a higher orbit, they'd only be post-poning the inevitable.
Dropping it in the ocean is much better than dropping it on NYC, Paris, Moscow Beijing, etc.
Spend the money on making a large target, which we can put selected people on. When mir crashlands, it will take out those people.
Considering the number of Aircraft carriers, destroyers, merchant vessels, and the like we dumped in there during WWII, MIR is like a speck of cosmic dust in comparison.
It's a nice thought, but the ocean is really FAR FAR too large a system to be affected by MIR's impact... if it were, consider what the Bikini Atoll atom bomb tests in the 50's would have done.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
water, you haven't taken any thermo or bio classes...
Puleeze. Mir is a pretty big chunk of metal as metal chunks go, but it is insignificant when compared with the mass of the ocean. Try heating a spoon to red hot, and plunking it into a glass of water. Sure, the water around it sizzles for a second, then the spoon is cold, and so for the most part is the water in the glass. Do the math comparing their mass and the delta T. If you have some thermo classes, it's pretty evident that Mir won't do squat to raise the temperature of the earth's oceans.
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
I really like how in this country we keep moving more and more socialist in regard to our social problems, but cut the military budget. Keep doing what doesn't work. :)
On a side note, it's important to keep in mind that the USSR was pouring all its money into its military and space program. In its now democratic system, all the money goes toward corruption. :) That's terrific.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
How does this affect Mark Burnett (the creator of Survivor) and his plans for Destination Mir?
What is truly sad is that the reactors at Chernobyl are still being used in the Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian government, they can't really afford to shut down the reactors that didn't go through the melt-down. I've seen documentaries of the place, and it is kinda spooky to see people taking trains to the reactor to work, and people deliberately trying to avoid the "hot spots" that are still there.
I did hear some talk of international help to shut it down, and possibly build a more modern nuclear plant (western style) to replace it, but I havn't heard anything since then.
What I'm trying to say is that your analogy is flawed, and yes, people are running the Chernobyl reactos for nostalgic reasons as well. Maybe we should talk about Three-mile Island... oh wait, that's still there as well. However, I don't think it is in current operation.
> for a piece of space history.....
and for the METAL EATING FUNGUS FROM OUTER SPACE !
--
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Please mr. Russian president - dont't kill all the cute fish and the corals in the pacific ocean. We, the /.errs know a better place for you to drop the MIR:
One Microsoft Way - Redmond VA.
--
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
No, what I want is for Max Ary of The Kansas Cosmosphere to get it. He's grabbed more Soviet/Russian gear than anybody else in the free world. If the Russians crash Mir into the ocean, expect Max out there with a big catcher's mitt.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Does anyone know the impact of bringing biological life back down to the planet that has existed in space for over 10 years? The /. article here talked about it -- but has it been studied?
That's assuming the heat of reentry kills it. If it doesn't, we'll be getting a great firsthand opportunity to study that fungus...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Hoooray! Now I can show my kids the fireworks show I've always promised them!
Anybody know where it's gonna be?
On another note: Goodbye Mir, it's been a good time.
(Side note: I don't actually have kids... it's a joke, anyway.)
-----
> Massive shortages of consumer goods, poverty,
> crime, housing problems, political
> corruption/oppression. Oh yeah but a they had
>a good space station.
Which goes to show something else entirely.
The political/economic system doesn't matter much. If you give smart people lots of resources, they can build some really cool things.
It also goes to show the major failing of ALL political systems - resources will get allocated according to political process rather than according to logic and common sense.
If russia was truely communistic, and truely believed in "the people" (afterall, isn't the basic tennant of socialism that the welfare of the people is paramount?) then maybe they would have allocated resources to raising the standard of living and producing enough food and goods for their entire populace - rather than trying to shoot cool toys into space and engaging in an insane arms race?
Of course the same could be said of the US. Armed forces Generals have been saying for years "We have enough nukes, we can stop making them" yet every year congress allocated more money to making new nukes.
Politics in action!
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Apart from the disruption caused by a large weight dropping into water
My guess is that it will be a bunch relatively small "weights" dropping into the water
the fact that inevitably, the structure of Mir will begin to decay, especially at the pressures encountered at the bottom of the ocean.
I bet their won't be any part of Mir intact enough for pressure to be an issue
The end result - radioactive contamination will poison the ocean.
Any potential radioactive contamination will be far less then the contamination from all the nuclear tests that were conducted in the Pacific.
If they have to get rid of Mir by dropping it into the ocean, then they should damn well get rid of the hazardous material it contains first.
Anybody have any idea of how much "hazardous material" is on Mir? I would guess it is pretty small compred to other sources of pollution.
Yet Another Web Site
...no, not MIR. The weirdo fungus it's infested with will die on reentry! Hey, it's AFAIK the only space-borne fungus we have, and we're heartlessly going to kill it?
Join the SPWSF now! The Society for the Protection of Weird Space Fungi needs your help!
Klaus---
"What, I need a *reason* for everything?" -- Calvin
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
Or was that an acid flashback again :-(
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
...Crashing things in oceans...
Despite all its shortcomings, Mir is a remarkable piece of engineering to be able to last this long, and is also proof that alternative systems to capitalism can really produce high quality technology. It's far more impressive than Skylab ever was, and it's been home to the longest human space missions in history. To just let it crash into the ocean is a tragedy--you'd think enough people would be able to spare the money to save it. Incidentally, I wonder if it would have had a far better fate under the communist government.
and i wanted to win the Destination Mir show, go up there and lick the psycadelic fungus!
my dreams are squashed because of money *boohoo*
anywhoo...if it goes into the pacific, that's international waters right? and if i recall, if something in/on the water has nothing living on it then its free game? Can you imagine the amount of precious metal on that thing? nor to mention the nifty gadgets?!
where's coustou's number at?
NO SPORK
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Hmm... how much longer can we go on dumping our junk in the oceans without seriously screwing up our ecosystems... Wouldn't some of the $40million be better spent attaching powerful boosters to the station and firing it off into space, or boosting into a geosynch. orbit and keeping it there... I know it would be a hazard to other misions if it's in a geosync orbit but atleast its position would be know and so avoidance could be taken.
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
I'm curious if all the space fungus will adapt to the ocean life and start propogating and thriving, before they are able to clean up the mess, or if they reentry will sizzle the little rascals before hitting the ocean. Also, for as long as its been in space, it has to have soaked up a large amount of radiation. Any hints as to what the outcome of all this will be?
Geraldo will host a live 3 hour TV show, to see what mysteries are locked away in the Mir spacestation. He'll drone on about aliens that visited Mir, and secretly helped with some of the missions. They'll be talk about Einstein-Rosen brige experiments. Speculations will be made about Zero-G sexual activities. They have plans to plant a small little boy named Kenny donning an orange jump suit about Mir, just before reentry. If there's a lull in the show, they have backup plans to talk about Jimmy Hoffa and Timothy Lear.
It will make broadcasing history.
I hate to say this, but couldn't MirCorp just launch another "space station" for the sole purpose of housing people? $40 million obviously wouldn't be enough, but it seems they don't have much trouble raising money to fund a battered and unreliable Mir, so why not raise enough to blast another habital environment into space?
If their purpose is to get civilians into space, I'm sure they'd have a more warm reception if it were on a platform that wasn't prone to random catastrophic failure (and if the tickets were less expensive, thank you).
-C
--
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
Or at least save Mir so we can have more "reality programming".
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
And no, residual radiation from the Mir (if there is any; it was primarily solar powered) will not be significant.
there was some way to control the crash of Mir and then auction the old clunker off on ebay. Im sure some rich person wouldnt mind shelling out big bucks for a piece of space history.....
"sex on tv is bad, you might fall off..."
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
It's US's NASA which has always been good at crashing things into oceans -- the US is surrounded by two, so they make convenient landing targets.
Russia/USSR never had much in the way of navagable ocean -- Vladivostok is frozen for half the year, and that's as far south as they can get on the Pacific, while Europe blocks most of the Atlantic (and the Black Sea is too shallow). So whereas the US could just aim for an ocean, Russia had to land on terra firma, a much greater challenge.
(As for your quip that they're good at *crashing*, per se, that's simply not true. Most of their failures either blew up on the ground or blew up in mid air. Very few were successful up-until attempted landings.)
-- Anne Marie
A lot of space junk has just been left up there, creating a navigation nightmare, and a hazard for the ISS.
At least the Russians are resposible enought to spend the money to down Mir properly. They are really squeezed, and it says something that they are going to blow a bunch of cash when they don't really _have_ to clean up.
Also, this is one less chance for the producers of those awful voyeristic TV shows. I know a lot of people may have liked Survivor, but I'd rather watch something else, thank you...
Sad that Mircorp coudn't make this happen. The premise of being the first commercial space hotel could have been very good for Russia. Thier economy could use the boost and so could the Russion people. They really need something to foster a sense of nationalism as it appears thier esteem is at an all time low and we have not heard any good news out of there in a long time. It looks like the Russians figured out what the US hasn't been able to: throwing lots of money at problems doesn't make them go away. Maybe now with their focus back on ISS we will enjoy the benefit of their extensive knowledge in extented duration spaceflight. I feel for them. The road to capitalism is a long and hard one from a communist state. It will take many lessons like this before they really get back on thier feet. I just wish that they wouldn't deorbit Mir. As expensive as it is to get things into orbit we should find some solution where we can recycle the massive amount of materials instead of dropping them back down to us. I'd rather entertain the idea of pushing Mir into a higher orbit until we can get a program going to take advantage of the raw materials that could be salvaged. NASA had an article not to long ago where they were discussing the idea of assembling satelites in space to save on the weight that over construction for launch adds to them. Combine that idea with some sort of recycler project and there wouldn't be any more deorbits required.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
...I'll start suspecting an Amiga involvement.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Before you go on about it being irradiated in outer space, I'd just like to point out that cosmic radiation just isn't strong enough there and any solar winds are mostly deflected by the earths magnetosphere. Anyway, even if Mir gets a good dose of beta radiation (free electrons for the uninitiated), any charge that builds up will just be 'absorbed' by the atmosphere. You probably get more extra electrons form solar wind in a second than you would form Mir no matter how long it had stayed up! As for alpha particles I think their only dangerous if their fast moving.
Not as if any less radiation is put into the sea by you average Nuclear power station or sunken nuclear submarine in the baltic sea.
dnnrly