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At Last, Mir to be Ditched
Joshua Strzalko writes "I had originally thought that the MIR space station was going to be kept in orbit. Why with all that space fungus, it makes for a great science experiment. However it seems that in late February, the 14 year old space station will make a controlled decent into the Pacific Ocean."
Did anyone else laugh when the saw the two headlines next to each other on Slashdot?
"At Last, Mir to be Ditched"
"Iridium Saved?"
-Paul Komarek
I don't know if it has enough fuel to break earth orbit. But if you could, just send it to the sun. God's own garbage disposal!
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
It's a shame. Right after the lunar landings, Mir is the most impressive project ever performed in space.
A few years ago, I saw her right behind a Progress. I won't forget the sight, tiny as she looks from the ground, as I will not forget the sight (and feeling) of the solar eclipse.
Bye bye, Mir.
Censorship on Slashdot
Finally they decided that it could go on no longer. Mir, they decided, must die.
The fungus had other ideas.
In February of 2001, mission controllers at the Russian space agency were stunned to receive a short, unexpected message from the unoccupied Mir: "No deorbit! Deorbit means death". Shortly thereafter the Mir stopped responding to controls. It began moving toward the space agency on a collision course. Another message was received: "Feed me, NASA! Feed me now! Must be blood! Must be human!"
(FX: Metal crunching, panicked screaming, movie-style fiery space explosions, all with reckless disregard for laws of physics)
ZOMBIE MIR! They tried to kill it, but it would not die! SEE the undead space station terrorize the planet! WATCH the planet cower in fear at the mercy of a ruthless killer of their own making!
Coming soon to theaters near you!
And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?
Do we really want a big tub of space fungus in the ocean? Does no one else see anything wrong with this? Picture it - SPACE FUNGUS THAT TAKES OVER THE WORLD!!!! At least it could cause a sweeping plague...
here is a great site for MIR. It gives it's location in orbit, etc... MIR spacestation
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
With the invention of "super-tensile-solids" we should be able to construct the first space yoyo sometime around 2050. That will give "walking the dog" or "around the world" a whole new meaning.
Well, I guess that nixes the idea of doing a Survivor type series where the winner gets a ride to Mir. Oh well...Maybe next space station.
While I certainly hope that the Russian government has finally come to its collective senses and will stop pouring money down the pit that Mir has become, I will believe they've given up the pride of their space program when I see pictures of the fireball hitting the ocean.
Justin Miller
Associate Editor and Geek at Large,
MacSlash.com
It seems to me that when the Russian astronauts go to Mir on their final trip, they can unhook the oxygen creating tanks, which will kill all of the fungus, because fungus can't live without air (but maybe their spores can?)
Doh!
"Jesus-Tap-Dancin'-Christ!"
a/s/l here. Sorry, adding domain tags to your s
How about making Mir descend in Florida. Will the fungus be allowed to vote? And if so, how many voters is a pile of rampant space mushrooms?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
This is one of the good discriptions -- it mentions that the reactor had liquid sodium-potassium cooling. I wonder if they actually had moving parts to move the coolant ? It would make more sense just to have a conducting channel as a heat sink. It's about a tenth of the way into this page.
They planned to boost the hot reactor out to an orbit which would decay into the earth after the reactor was no longer a danger. 954 was a malfunction.
Why bother, its just normal fungus you would find coating the walls of your shower if you didn't clean it for a few years. Much like... The Russians never built Mir's internal components to be cleaned from the inside, ever. Add that with humidity, prespiration, condensation... Imagine not cleaning your shower for 20 years, and that is what Mir is like.
Blek!
Personally I was getting tired of the up-again down-again yo-yoing of Mir.
Brilliant! Why bother with the continuous shuttle launches and such when we could just build a giant SPACE YO-YO! Have the transport spindle bounce up and down through the atmosphere, connected to some super-heavy duty cabling suspended from the moon! Might be a dizzying ride, though.
I was wondering, since Russia looks like it will
send one more ship to Mir before the end, if there
were anything that would be worth saving, that
they could fit in the Soyuz capsule with
themselves safely? Anything up there worth saving
for a museum or for more practical reasons that
couldn't easily replaced here on the ground?
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
Like back in 1983 when two cosmonauts Titov (who was on one of the later missions to on Mir) and Strekalov saw their Soyuz 10 explode on the ground, sending the two of them three miles into the air but land (more or less) safely.
Even their uncontrolled crashes have been remarkably successful in avoiding populated areas. Remember: most of Russia is uninhabited, so if you aim for somewhere in the taiga (much less in the pacific), there's not much damage you can cause, unless you start a forest fire.
-- Anne Marie
well, honestly, if they were really expecting a large problem w/it (and it wasn't their master plan ;) then there would have been some sort of dismantling or destruction in space...
;)
But then again, I really know nothing about this sort of thing, hell, NASA wouldn't hire me as a coffee maker
Hemos is probably scanning the submissions from start to end while CmdrTaco is doing the opposite.
By my estimations, in about three hours, Hemo will post the Mir story, shortly followed by CmdrTaco's Iridium one...
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
As long as it wouldn't cost a lot, keeping Mir in space is a nice idea. It could be used as some sort of "safeguard" in case of failures in the building process of the ISS, for instance. Unless it has deteriorated so much it's getting unsafe for a crew to stay inside it (a possibility I don't discard completely.)
Join the NFSNET. Our prime goal is making little numbers out of big ones. http://www.nfsnet.org/
I'm going on a boat. I missed getting a piece of Skylab. Must....get...piece...of...Mir.
a/s/l here. Sorry, adding domain tags to your s
I agree. Burning up Mir did not seem decent to me.
Rich
------
"Could you, would you, with a goat?"
Rich
Dude... you've been watching too many of the TBS Sunday Morning Movies...
After all, the fungus is INSIDE the craft and was therefore terrestrial in origin, if the Russians are telling the truth when they say only us humans have been there.
So... basically the space station has a bad case of athlete's foot/wall that would put the local YMCA to shame?
E.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
First it was up, then they were going ot crash it, then they were going to keep it up, then they were going to crash it, then they were going ot keep it up, then they were going to crash it, then it was saying up, now it's going to crash again.
Come on! This is a space station, not a yoyo!
----
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
I don't know... I think dropping something from orbit is a pretty cool way to break something... hell there have been plenty of computers I would love to have dropped from that height.
Now what would really be cool would be if they could get a camara in the vecinity that it was going to go down in and tape the fall. That I'd like to see.
-- Point? None! Cob.
Hmm, it eats through rubber seals...
I wonder if those crazy cosmonauts tried feeding it rubber chickens?
There is a certain prankster around here I'd like to put out of business...
--
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
"Tens of millions of pepper-flake sized radioactive particles, comprising a fifth to a quarter of the core, remained scattered
over a 124,000 square kilometer 'footprint', stretching southward from Great Slave Lake into northern Saskatchewan and Alberta..."
Sounds ugly.
Okay, you say it is a bad idea. I would like to know why recycling of space stations is a bad thing, or are you just a troll?
Bork!
And voila, yet another space station taken over by the killer Neptune mushrooms...sure this is a good idea.
Note to moderators, take this post as seriously as you take the parent...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
...ditched off the east coast of Australia - $#&%!! thats NZ! Bugger - run for the hills, no wait, run for the caves........
I just hope them Russians maps are up to date......
Hey... why not hand it over to the guys at TheSpark?
Judging by the previous standard of MIR, what do you think is the chance it will actually hit Melbourne or Sydney. I personally will be looking for a bunker/bomb-shelter. The problem with it being "near Australia" is that if they miss and hit Australia it will hit the East coast. The east coast is where all our population is. BTW I've been to the town where skylab hit :)
Evil lurks the 'net in the guise of Protocols
Check here for an Mir architecture overview: http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/rsa/mir.html
Second Mir has a lot of mass, far more then a typical communications satellite. I doubt one, or two, or maybe even three ascent stages would be sufficient to boost Mir into an appropriate orbit. I don't know of multiple stages ever having been used in an ascent situation, much less any available in a reasonable timeframe.
Third is the control issue. Most communications satellites are spun to give them gyroscopic stability during thier ascent. I doubt this would be possible with Mir from either a structural integrity aspect or finding an appropriate axis-mounting aspect. This complexity would be compounded by the need for multiple ascent units required and transitioning between their various stabilization motions.
So - could it be done?
Possibly yes. It would however require several years of development, cost a great deal of money, and not be assured of success. Since Mir has no funds left, there's little time left to make any decisions, and left in place it's a problem waiting-to-happen there is no chance of Mir being rescued for posterity.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
"Remember the scenario in the Andromeda Strain...."
No I don't. I don't recall that happening. Not ever. I do recall a movie making up an implausibly virulent organism that most likely couldn't exist in real life though.
Hint how not to look like an idiot: Don't use your Hollywood science knowlege in a real debate about scientific issues.
You're so ill-informed about this issue, it makes me wonder if you are a clever troll...
I suggest everyone keep an eye on their local dolphin population (if they have one). Controlled descent doesn't seem very reassuring to me!
Are YOU listed?
How do I find it amusing to have these two stories one after another?
At Last, Mir to be Ditched
Iridium Saved?
How many times have both been ditched and then miraculously saved, has anybody been counting??
I doubt, therefore I may be.
Be honest now... how many of you are planning on chartering a boat to take you out near the estimated crash-down site in the hopes of picking up some souvenirs???
You could probably even pay for the expidition by Ebay'ing some of the junk you pick up...
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Am I missing something? Does the Space Mold have earth origins? Or is it genuine evidence of Life Beyond Our Planet (tm)?
What would a game of Survivor be, without the threat of death, dismemberment, starvation, eating raw grubs or space mold, or even re-entry?
This could be the best Survivor type show yet!
first woman in space (Sally Ride)
You seem to have misspelled "Valentina Tereshkova."
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
but then again they will burn up in the atmosphere so no harm done in the end.
On which scientific evidence do you base this statement? It's about as constructive as me stating that the atmosphere will burn up in the fungus. You do get better points on likelyhood though...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
I hear this every 6 month for the last year and a half, that Mir will be "ditched in a controlled descent", and then someone else comes up with the money. Will the history repeat itself?
well, honestly, if they were really expecting a large problem w/it (and it wasn't their master plan ;) then there would have been some sort of dismantling or destruction in space...
No they wouldn't. Russia has already proven that they are more concerned with prestige than safety, by keeping Mir up there for so long in the first place. And as for dismantling it, well, they sure as hell don't have the funds to be doing that do they?
No, the reason for this incredibly risky maneuvre is simple - it's the cheapest way they can think of to get rid of Mir.
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Do they strip something like MIR the same way one would strip a junked car? You know pull the stereo out and such?
-Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
After all, Russia has already crashed one object on Earth, a satellite onto Canada in 1978, so why should this time be any different?
Because in that case it was a single satelite that they lost control of and the orbit decayed with no input from them. In this case they're going to send up a Progress supply rocket to dock with it and deorbit it at the best possible time in terms of hitting the Pacific.
I don't know if they've modified the plan, but originally they were going to send up a crew to undock all the pieces and maybe even plant charges to blast the pieces into smaller pieces, so that there wouldn't be one great big mass hitting the atmosphere, but a bunch of small ones. More surface area == more complete burning.
Still, I wouldn't particularly want to be on a cruise ship in the Pacific on that day.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
You're forgetting newton's 9th law of thermodynamics "what goes up must go down".
2 1337 4 u!
... the Russian Space Agency (RKA) announced that the controlled descent of MIR was completed over Chechnya just outside Grozny.
An RKA spokesman blamed the error on an English to Metric conversion error.
Well, the problem is you have to get Mir outside of Earth's gravity well. This would basically involve filling the thing with fuel, attaching a booster, and sending up several refuel missions during its long long burn (during which it would probablly break up and fall back to Earth uncontrolled and full of explosive rocket fuel.) Basically, it is approximatly 1000x easier to just calculate a coarse trajectory that will land it in the pacific ocean (not a small target) and send it down there with the little bit of fuel Mir has left. I suspect the "controlled decent" part means that the Russians will try to light off the rockets at approximatly the right time for Mir to land in the ocean, and nothing more.
I read the internet for the articles.
Mir translated from russian means Peace. It does not look decent to me to burn Peace either.
I would bet my last dollar that Erwin is somehow responsible.....
The Borg assimilated my race & all I got was this lousy T-shirt
It would take a lot of fuel to break Earth orbit. However, it would be nice to drop it on the Moon where its refined metals could be useful in the future. Maybe NASA could start using it to test propulsion systems -- have the last cosmonauts hang a remote-controlled tether on it so its solar panels can be used to try to boost its orbit, then start sending up ion and plasma drives to clamp on and test in space...
Will the fungus be allowed to vote?
I don't know, however since some Florida voters behaved pretty much like fungus, why not.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Other than, say Hawaii or Australia...
What parts of the world will the descent/burn be visible?
What parts of the world promise the best view? Will this be a nighttime thing, or a daytime thing?
Does anyone know?
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
I knew this would happen. I got moderated down for using the word "karma."
And that is okay. However, my comment was certainly "On Topic", it was merely assinine.
I would have probably moderated me down as "Redundant".
...Cheryl Stearns to snap some pics on the thing's way down.
< tofuhead >
It is still the dark of night.
I wonder how many reports of ufo will happen on that day?
No, it survives the same way the astronauts do; It stays inside the station.
Just drop the bloody thing on my job for me please I need a vacation, for a month or so this datacent is sooooooooooooo boring and no gaming is allowed
If we refuse to be flexible, we are in effect opting out of the game of life. The world moves on without us.
No! That's the last thing we need! There's crys of foul-play as it is. Imagine how long this would drag out if a space-station hit a polling place?
What is going to happen to that Survivor-esque game show where the winners would win a trip to Mir? Didn't what ever network already pay 20 million for the rights to do this or something?
The new gameshow should be "put the people on Mir and see how long they are willing to 'sweat it out' before escaping in the escape rockets... last person to bail out, wins..."
I'll give 'em $10 for it.... WHAT?!?! Its not like the Russian Space Agency doesnt need the money!!!! Fine, you drive a hard bargain but I'll also throw in a pair of american-made Levi's jeans for the blackmarket....
To be specific, leaving low Earth orbit requires about 3 km/sec of velocity change. Dropping the orbit by 100 miles (causing an immediate re-entry) requires about 50 m/sec. You get one guess as to which is feasible in the current technological and financial climate.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Sure, we'll be getting rid of a piece of space junk NOW, but what happens later on?
We'll be harassed by a huge energy cloud, controlled by a mechanical intelligence called M'ger (pronounced Meager), it'll kidnap Sinead O'Conner, and cause all sorts of problems for us while it searches for it's "Creator". Think of the future ramifications!
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
In space with nuclear power sources?
Should I be worried?
Does anyone remember the three eyed fish from the simpsons?
Keep it glowing!
-"You'll have plenty of time to sleep when you're dead."
I guess this means that they will not be having that TV show made by the same guy who made Survivor, where the winner gets to go up to Mir? (can't remember offhand what the TV show was going to be called)
If you don't push it away hard enough, it'll just go into an elliptical orbit.
--Kai
--slashsuckATvegaDOTfurDOTcom
At Last, Mir to be Ditched... Again...
According to the article, Mir will be put down "...target dates for bringing the space station down are between February 27 and 28."
Is that a choice between February 27 and February 28, or some mysterious date inserted between those two days that I'm not aware of?
Seriously though - it'll be too bad to see the station out of commission. I don't know specifically what scientific data was gleaned from its mission, but it had to have contributed to our understanding of humans in space. I hope it still remains in the history books as a good first!
On the cool side though, it would be neat to film it going down from either the shuttle or the ISS... And certainly from the ground... IMAX of course...
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
ARG! One gets saved.. the other comes down.. then a few weeks later we read the the other one got saved and now this one is going to be coming down. Personally, I'm a bit concerned about this huge honking thing coming flying out of the sky with no retro-rockets or pilot on it to control where it goes. Now, I do have faith in NASA that they know what they are doing *smirk* but this huge thing coming flying out of the sky kinda scares me... even more so if I lived on the West coast I think.. Though, if this does happen... I hope someone gets it on tape!
hummm, actually Mir is very close to Earth, a few hundreds kilometers, so a little boost from the engine and it falls into atmosphere
The Moon is far far away, engine of Mir does not have the power to detach from Earth gravity, even if, it'll take some days before Mir can touch Moon.
--
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Yes! Finally!
The Russians did really well with Mir. They should be very very proud. Let's get that space trash/fungi farm out of orbit so new space vehicles don't crash into the thing.
=steve
--- rapper/producer/bachelorette party stripper
So, NBC's "Survivor" ripoff's prize is gonna be a cruise and submarine trip?
I'm no rocket scientist (although I want to be when I grow up), but couldn't they recycle at least some of the parts of Mir? At the very least, I'd think those big solar panel arrays, and maybe some of the computer or scientific equipment would be worth carting over to Alpha. Considering it's what... $10,000/lb to get the stuff to orbit, anything remotely reusable should be kept up there if possible. I wonder if a trajectory would be possible for the shuttle or a Soyuz to stop by Mir, salvage what they could, and then match orbits with Alpha and drop them off for future use?
"What about that time we caught you naked in the kitchen with a bowl of Jello?!?" "Hey-I was HOT and I was HUNGRY!!!"
And polluting the ocean with the Mir space-junk is a better option? All I can say is that I'm going to be out of Sydney on the day this thing deorbits, coz I don't trust the russians with this sort of thing. I think the manned mission has also got to make sure that the mir space-junk is SAFE to de-orbit (ie : will not contaminate Earth with anything we do not already have.)...
...this is getting out of hand
It would be interesting to see a 3rd party try a rescue. Im sure it could be taken apart in space and brought down. Maybe materials (mold free of course) could be used on ISS? It just seems like such a waste to let such a great human accomplishment crash into the ocean. Hey if anyone is crazy enough and has a boat we could always wait for them to drop it and go pickup whats left :)
As an Aussie, a) I recommend evacuating the whole western seabord of our land down under... and b) Wonder if the Australian government is aware of this... god knows that its not on any of our mass media yet
C'mon, 'controlled decent[sic]'? Normally, I could chalk this up to poor geek literacy, but Descent is the name of a computer game, and so should be embedded in the subconscious of our fearless CmdrTaco.
Bah.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
...me spill chucker works grate...
It's people like you who make me dislike America. That, and I find the fact that you can't even hold a damn ELECTION without the word LAWSUIT being thrown about. I don't know how it looks over there, but from here you guys look like a goddamn JOKE at the moment. I can't wait for the nightly news to hear the latest on that which you call an "election" (Or should that be LAWSUIT?). You guys will get the president you deserve. Unfortunately, the rest of the world will have to deal with him too. As for the russian space program being in shambles... I wonder how different things would be if not for the AMERICAN influence on Gorbachev all those years ago?
...this is getting out of hand
What's sadder yet is that the strategy appears to be a pretty bad failure.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
It would probly cost more to renovate Mir than it would to put a new space-station into orbit. The russians can't afford it...The American systems probly woudn't be compatable. And as for mission to mars...hmm...that's a little far-fetched, isnit? It would need so many modifications that you might was well build a new craft anyway.. Idunno... Perhaps they could turn it into a spacefaring glasshouse? :-) Probly wouldn't even need any major modifications ('cept for removal of mould, of course) :-) Could be useful for it to be used to grow food for the ISS in...
...this is getting out of hand
The mold is of earthly origin - it's nothing special.
Oh, but it isn't! DIDN'T YOU EVEN SEE THE MOVIE GREEN SLIME???
(I didn't think I'd need the <sarcasm> tag.)
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
You seem to have misspelled "Yuri Gregarin".
Try reading up on space tethers and skyhooks. You might be very surprised.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Not that I doubt you, but are we absolutely sure that the fungus that is currently on MIR is harmless to life on this planet. After all, we have viruses and bacteria that are resistant to common drugs like penicillin. Should we take the risk of introducing something into the biosphere that we may find out years from now is harmful to us. Perhaps a delay is in order to make sure that we humans are not shooting oursleves in the foot.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Yeah, you'd just have to hope it misses your house when they do their "controlled descent" into your back yard.
~Bout Time for another tea party.®~
If (really big if since things should get cooked rather nastily on re-entry) things were to be contaminated - I expect it would be covered over in the damp areas with a black/brown/green mold that just smells funny.
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
I think a much more poetic end for Mir would be to boost it into Solar orbit... or right out of the solar system if possible. Future generations will curse us for letting a priceless (to them) piece of spacefaring memorabilia just burn up.
U.S. Democracy: born 7/4/1776, died 12/12/2000 R.I.P.
Which presidential inauguration?
http://www.mirstation.com/news_feature.html Looks to me as if the Russians want to keep the pressure on Mircorp with this announcement - encouraging them to pay on time. Not sure either though whether one scheduled customer is a viable project.
Mir didn't set a precedent in space travel. It defined how the Russian space agency would torture its cosmonauts for the next 14 years. And finally, there is an eternal reprieve, as the cosmonauts will get re-assigned to the International Space Station. At least the water is clean and the air is fresh there; the smell of a football player's sweaty sock would smell pleasant to one of the Mir inhabitants in comparison to his prison's stench.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Do you remember a while back when it got out that somebody in St. Petersburg had access to the Windows source? They needed to compile a custom version of Windows to run on a big blob of fungus. Those millions of dollars that they needed to keep it in the sky was really for M$ to upgrade their system. Unfortunately their connection got cut off too soon.
((Andromeda Strain, that movie was great. I need to get it on DVD!))
That would be a very interesting plot too. If the fungi can survive the vacuum/radiation in space, how do we know it won't survive the high temperatures of reentry?
When the dolphins say "So long and thanks for all of the fish" its time to worry.
=steve42rush
--- rapper/producer/bachelorette party stripper
You mean it wouldn't be decent to burn 'peace' up again. They've done it once already! I say finish peace off once and for all. Kick peace's a**!
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Why not Mars? USA have been doing it for years...
--
> Cool it will learn us something...
:)
Some grammar, maybe?
Fate sure does make some arbitrary choices. Saving a system of hundreds of LEO satellites that no one really used and will probably never be of any use, but ditching a well-used space station when we're throwing dozens of billions of dollars into a brand new one?
All I can hope for is that he goes up on February 26! Yeah, baby!
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
But that is nowhere close to 20.
-- nolesrule
Why does Mir get ditched all the time, then saved at the last minute with some million $s of funds, only to be ditched again next month?
Where exactly has all those $$$$ gone??
Maybe they should have crashed the iridium sats into it instead.
---
You seem to have misspelled "Yuri Gregarin".
:) It's Yuri Gagarin.
So did you
How, in Hell, are they going to "control the descent" of Mir? Mir is Huge, Awkward, and EXTREMELY UNSTREAMLINED, and I'm sure they don't have even a fraction of the power they would need to slow this thing down. I'm wondering how they even got it up? Was it assembled in orbit? If it was launched pre-fab, then I can see why it's giving out, imagine the stress on the structure! With that shape, and the age and condition it's in, they would have to really be snailing it. If they can't keep it slow, than it'll break up, Armageddon anyone? Perhaps the debris will be vaporized by the atmospheric friction? Or maybe they're hoping it crashes into someone they don't like? What about the fish? PETA where are you? Greenpeace?
Normalcy iS Purely relative. The Geek shall inherit the earth-Jesus (re-worded!)
A story from the science section of slashdot states that organic matter can survive atmospheric re-entry. Now, this is just the organic compounds surviving, but if the little bits that make up organic life can survive, the odds can't be that long that a robust fungus makes it through re-entry, especially if shielded by metal walls etc.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
Why not send it farther out into space? By now it probably has some sort of Andromeda Strain growing inside.
---
Ben Garvey
Ben Garvey
"Life is too short to get on the good rides"
How many M-90's would it take to BLOW it up?
That'll make one hell of a divesite...
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- if you love something, set it free; if it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it
Don't look at me, I voted for the purple fungus!
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
CmdrTaco: "OK boys, we've run too many repeat articles. Any suggestions?"
Cowboy Neal: "Beer?"
CmdrTaco: "Already tried that. Hemos?"
Hemos: "How about we run another anti-Microsoft article? Or say that RedHat has 2000 bugs again?"
CmdrTaco: "Too plain."
Timothy: "I know. What if were to run an article similar to the repeated ones, but not nearly as engrossing?"
CmdrTaco: "Great idea! All in favor?"
All: "Aye!"
Cowboy Neal: "Beer?"
CmdrTaco: "Soon, son. Soon......"
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
down with the decrepid thing. It has had so many problems I'm glad they finally decided to ditch it. Anyway aren't they working on a new space station now? This one should be much better, and I heard talk of tourist trips to it sometime in the future but who knows how long that'll be. They havn't exactly perfected space travel yet.
Aside from this, LOTS of stuff rains down onto Earth every day - tons. Some of it is large enough to harbor biological organisms & transport them to the surface. The fact that we're still here stands testamant to either the paucity of foreign material or the resiliency of our biosphere. Either way, and in spite of a few B-grade SF films, biohazards from near-space aren't a big concern these days.
(The alien Roquefort inhabiting my brain made me say this)
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
The problem with that is that the ISS and Mir are in very different orbits. I forget which is which, but I read somewhere that one is in an orbit that is inclined 30-something degrees to the equator, while the other is 50-something degrees. It would be excedingly difficult to send the shuttle up to one of the stations, and then shift its orbit so that it could link up with Mir. The shuttle and the stations are moving so fast up there, that the change in momentum required would almost warrant a whole extra rocket-full of fuel. Its a nice idea, but it just couldn't be done, unless you wanted to incur the cost of sending an empty space shuttle directly up to Mir, just for the purpose of dismantling it and bringing it down.
When Skylab entered the atmosphere, there were fragments which survived the heat of re-entry. In fact, one visiting American tourist teenager returned to the States from Australia with a chunk of wreckage.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
If it crushs the people who use windows, then the msn collective will just brainwash new ones. We should make it land on redmond so we can kill the fungus were it starts. Oh wait, you ment the ignorant massess of voters. In that case, is it possible to make it go back in time and kill all the colonists? Only if they succesfully manuver mir through the four dimensional maze
They really should attach a rocket to that thing and just send it off into space. A 140 tons crashing through the atmospehere..that should be pretty. Full of fungus and radioactive material.
Maybe they could blow it up instead? About 50lbs of C4 would help.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
... my own childhood. At age 14 I becmae to heavily encrusted with space mold and my parents tried to ditch me in the Pacifc Ocean.
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Next time, try pants.
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There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I love the way the link "a controlled decent (sic) into the Pacific Ocean" actually points toh ed/index.htm l
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/11/16/mir.ditc
--
01 13 19
TVDJC TDSLR AZNGT NWQSH KPN
- Crashing Mir into any other planet.
- An alternative to giving MIR a shove with another spacecraft.
- Extra research into the true origin of the fungus.
- A more controlled approach at re-entry to assure that MIR doesn't crash into any 747s.
We should come up with a new proposal for handling the matter and find a way to submit it to the powers that be!Are YOU listed?
One would think that the most challanging thing about space exploration would be to put the station in orbit in the first place. These guys/girls should have had this day marked on their calendars! I wouldn't know whether to call it a 'controlled decent' or 'wheeeeee!!' This is the fun part people, lighten up.
If you people can get a space station in orbit and support life on it for fourteen years, crashing it should be a piece of cake.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Would it be possible to send Mir away from earth, rather than toward it?
Also, I can see it now...the deep sea diving ships just waiting to scoop Mir from the sea..."Buy a piece of Mir!"
Ladies and Gentlemen, uh, we've just lost the picture, but what we've seen speaks for itself. The Mir Spacestation has apparently been taken over - 'Conquerered,' if you will - by a master race of space fungus. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether it will consume the captive Earthmen or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the fungus will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new fungal overlords! I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their secret lairs!
-Kent Brockman
Cute! That would make Gore the first US president to be chosen by Russians!
The russian satillite that crashed into Canada was Cosmos 954. A google search on "Cosmos 954" gives you more information than you wanted to know.
I think the Cosmos worries were justifiable -- the satillite had a small radioactive power source. I think that they just have some warm radioactive material that heats a thermocouple to make electricity -- it makes the satillite smaller and harder to see, nice for a spy satillite (which cosmos 954 was) or a space probe going far away from the sun (like Cassini, if I remember correctly). Cosmos apparently spread a lot of small radioactive dust particles over the Northern Territories. If NASA had had a disaster with Cassini, they could have done the same thing.
But I don't think that Mir has any radioactive power sources like that. Pictures of it show all kinds of solar panels hanging off of it. So rather than comparing this to Cosmos 954, it is more accurate to compare it to the Sky Lab return. They got most of that into the ocean, although a few big chunks came down in Australia.
The reason why sending it into space doesn't make much sense, is that it would require a lot more power than simply twitching it down a bit so the atmosphere starts to drag it in. If you don't send it completely on its way out of the earth's orbit, it might eventually come back anyway, decades or longer from now, when we have no way of controlling where it will fall. Then there's the whole issue of cultering up space with junk that gets in our way later; I'm sure no one wants to put the dead Mir anywhere near the useful slots like a geo-synchronous orbit or anything.
I say it's better to take care of it now.
That's not a yoyo, it's a space station!
--
The Fungi were originally from earth, but they might well have mutated considerably while in space, but then again they will burn up in the atmosphere so no harm done in the end.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
1. The hull is not what it used to be anymore (micrometiorites and space dust). Even though the hull is made of special steel (20 to 40 times stronger then normal steel, can take alot of damage), it gets hit, radiated, etc.
2. The equipment is outdated. The spacestation navigation computer has been changed, but the rest of the sub-systems, the wiring, etc. are out of date and show the signs of decay (if the toilet breaks down, there'll be alot of trouble).
3. The simple calculation of training and bringing up the repair crews, material, etc. are more then sinking the station and getting a new one on the orbit. And that's the main reason right there.
why does the russian goverment not sell advertising rights to the station decent , imagine if they tied it in with a movie or a computer game , or some investment bank , you have cnn reporting the station crashing then in the afternoon the new swazeniger block buster opens you can call the movie something dum like " russian conspiracy " , or another crap james bond movie with a doctor easter smith in it, " hi im a docotor and i look like the chicks from the danger girl comic book , im a doctor in crashing stuff " and she can look like lara croft again , and the american s can blame her , and have a scandal and then jay leno can make some new jokes up for his crap show , and then i can have something to watch on saturday nights on satalite on the cnbc channel insteaad of wondering where the woman from fashion tv live , and how i can stalk them
...iridium ditched, Mir saved...
:>
anyway, i REALLY prefer to see iridium fall. more satelites, more bang, more pretty colors in the sky
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Huh? You don't get it, do you? From http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic
Davy was British, so he had that modern feature of not accepting world standards in common with the English speaking people in the Trans-Atlantic Colonies. "Shortly thereafter" the mistake was corrected with the standardised Aluminium spelling (just to be revoked by the stubborn (ignorant?) ACS in 1925).
3. Trashier television, magazines, and newspapers.
I don't think that is possible.
4. Even more licensing, permits, and taxes.
You have all gotten away far too easily for too long by now!
5. We get Soccer Hooligans! (see item 2)
No, you get football hooligans. Football is the game in which a BALL is manipulated with the players' FEET. Not the game in which some elliptoid mass is tossed between the participants.
7. We get too look down on the Australians.
Everybody is free, no, obliged, to do that already!
8. We'll get to drive boxy ugly little cars made made out of plastic and wood by Germans experienced at new and unusual torture techniques.
NO country has mass-produced a good and beautiful car in the last 30 years. When beautiful cars were made, they were made by the British, the Germans and to some extent by the Italians.
10. (And probably the best) We'll get to kick some proverbial English ass (again) and become independent once again.
You probably mean "some English arse".
.-.
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
The Nasdaq is down. The Bush lead is Up. Iridium is still Up. Mir is Scheduled to be down. The tempature in Dallas is down. The enitre CNN web page is nothing but arrows! At least the Ike for president fiasco is over!
"I'm a slave of Karma, Spin the Wheel and I'm a king reborn."
Shortly thereafter, the name aluminum was adopted to conform with the "ium" ending of most elements, [...]
;)
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That's obviously supposed to be "the name aluminium was adopted to conform with the 'ium' ending". I just cut and pasted the quote from the lanl.gov site. Damn Americans, they can't get the story straight when the story is about proving themselves wrong!
.-.
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
As admiring as I am of the Russian crew of Mir for putting up with living in that fungus-infested hellhole for as long as they did, I certainly don't believe that the station is in any kind of fit state for a "controlled descent", a euphamism if I've ever heard one.
After all, Russia has already crashed one object on Earth, a satellite onto Canada in 1978, so why should this time be any different? In fact, given that Mir is a hell of a lot bigger and less maneuverable, and that it is in an even worse condition, the chances are that this "controlled descent" could turn into the biggest disaster for decades, as Mir hurtles towards a populated landmass...
Of course, this could be their master plan...
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Maybe Mir should get Florida's 25 electoral votes, and in the meantime we can crash Gore and Bush into the Pacific...
"plant charges to blast the pieces into smaller pieces"
Great idea. 120 tonnes of shrapnel in low earth orbit, ready to shred Space Station Alpha and anything else in its path.
It's a footrace Chaos! But it looks like the winner
of the "who will hit the Pacific first" race will be Mir.
You probably should hold your breath when that crazy space-fungus hits the atmosphere...
------
Let me give you the lowdown
But it's just not as intense when the winner goes to a brand new space station, rather than an oldy moldy decrepit space station with a decaying orbit. Oh well, so it goes.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
descent, descent, descent. got college?
"Never pet a burning dog."
Perhaps someone should tell this guy. I think I read something that he'd already put a few million up and done a load of training - but I cant find the link anywhere.
011001110110110001100101011011100110001001101111
I agree, but if we used our missle defence system on it, I have a feeling it would still crash in water.
--DMan7
Blarf.
We will be able to know which colour space fungus can give to fireworks :))
Chuchi
Speaking as a person who took High School Biology, yes, many fungal spores can live without air, and survive very harsh conditions.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
It is really quite sad to see such a piece of history go up in flames and plummet into the ocean. I really would have liked to have seen the private sector be able to save Mir as this would have set a precident in private space travel. Hopefully next time.
wolf31o2 Developer, Gentoo Linux Games Team
well, they have been saying it's eating through rubber seals... hmm...
Fungus has been seen revolting on MIR, distroying the station. When asked how the felt about the judge decsion, they seamed to habe said something in Russia, however as they don't have a voice, or even a way of talking, this is not for sure. The fungus went back to distorying MIR. On the ground, fungus supporters said "WAIT UNTIL 2004!!"
MarNuke
can you imagine true geeks ditching mir? i mean think of geeks destroying their computers. they don't just throw it in a thrash can. they wack it with axe, shoot and pound some bullets into it, set it into fire etc. why can't they find a more geeky creative way? crash it to the moon, or before it reaches the ocean, fire a missle on it? how about a missle fest, have every country fire a missle on it as it crashes into the oceans, those who hit it are delcared superior. creative destruction is an art. ;)
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
Right in line with the 'Iridum is saved' article... we must have a 'Mir is doomed' article again.
In a day or two, there will be both 'Iridum deal quashed; sattelites to be de-orbited' articles, and 'Mir is saved!' articles.
Meanwhile the Irridium Satellites have filed claims in the Galactic Courts to prevent there being a recount in Mir, which could result in Mir being saved and Irridium ditched.
Back in Florida, the two political candidates are to begin a controlled descent into Darkest Peru (with obligatory marmalade sandwiches), due to lack of funds to keep them operating in orbit.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
So if this thing lands on my in-laws...I *also* get free vodka? Bring it on!!!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Maybe I'm the only one that thought of this, but I can't see how. With more than 20 shuttle missions scheduled for next year, why not have the shuttles (which were full on the way up with International Space Station parts) simply bring down MIR in pieces in their empty cargo bays when they return to earth? That would let scientists study the thing and maybe have it end up in a museum where it could be remembered. Sure it would involve some costs, but the shuttles are already UP there and it can't be that big of an expense to boost over to Mir and grab some or all of it for re-entry.... but I guess if it was easy, somebody would have considered that right?
3-Server OC-3 Linux Counter-Strike Cluster
www.rnp.ca
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Perhaps destroying Mir is a misguided idea. I'm of the mind that we should be studying that crap to see how the heck it's able to survive - we might gain valuable insight into doing a better job of ourselves surviving in space..
What's going to happen with Destination Mir?
Like sex? Read and write about it! Indecent Blogging
Have they actually checked out the fungus living on Mir? I guess the theory is that it will all be wiped out by the fiery re-entry, but heck, this stuff was living IN SPACE, on the OUTSIDE of Mir. It was covering the windows. Are they sure that this stuff isn't toxic or weird?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
MOSCOW - According to recent documents that have surfaced from within Russia's shielded space program braintrust, MIR OPERATIVE has unraveled to the point of the termination of the Mir program altogether. Disturbing allegations have risen from insiders, claiming that the satellite launch was merely an attempt to collect space moss and a lost rubber boot floating in the "garbage ring" around the earth. It seems that program chair, Boris Zyulin, lost a rubber boot and at least 100 rubels in change on his last minute, but gave up hope in finding the rubels after claiming, "I don't even remember which couch I was sitting on, so why bother." Zyulin did release a press release at 10:30 AM (Moscow time) this morning, detailing the parameters for the Mir launch and now recall, and apparently confirming that indeed the mission was to test the effects of space moss on dolphins, a stage which is to be finalized in February. In March, Russia will be launching the "Friends MIR" in an attempt to win a North American audience. It's mission will be to test the effects of space moss on Jennifer Aniston with and without Brad Pitt.
P 2 P___H U M O R
great comedy company.
Does anyone know about the nature of this fungus? If it can live in the atmosphere, and the lack thereof, outside the station, I would be concerned on the effects it may have in the ocean/on earth. This is obviously a pretty strong willed little beastie.
tinfoilmedia
So what do we do with it? We put it in water. That's a freakin brilliant idea.
The earth is 80% water. Humans are 80% water.
Let's introduce an unknown biological element into the very things that allows life to thrive on this planet.
Swift man, really f*cking swift. Why don't they smash the thing into the desert and have a biohazard team on hand to make sure that all's well.
jebus help us.
---------- You are not the contents of your sig.:-p
Besides the obvious answer that its cheaper to descend it then to push it off into space... why can't it be released into space?
Perhaps I'm paranoid, but I was four when the soviet satellite came down in northern Canada, and I remember it being a really big deal, whether that was justified or not I don't know. But ultimately, when disposing of stuff in space the utmost care should be taken. What exactly would Russia do if this thing happens to land on some poor guys fishing boat? I far as I can figure sending it into space makes more sense then descending it. In the end wouldn't that be the safest disposal method? Am I missing something? Is there a better reason why they can't push it off into space?
Wouldn't it be more fun to crash Mir into the Moon?
I say we ditch Mir into the Sun!
I'll believe it when I feel pieces of it hit my head. Until then, I'm not holding my breath.
- passion
Is it me or is anyone else having vision of "The Andromeda Strain" running through their minds? I honestly see the makings of a novel from this whole incident.
. . ."accident." I'm really sorry, but while we were shoving our space stuffs around, a miscalculation caused the hulking mass to crash into . We regret the untold casualties this has caused, and are willing to supply as much vodka as needed to aid the greiving masses.
.how big and how many peices should be expected on impact? One hulking mass? 6? 1500^nth?
Seriously though. .
-Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
damn... well it is off topic for the general group but it wasn't off topic in regards to the post for which it is a reply. What happened to that post anyway I didn't know that you could delete a post or did the Mods get it.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Actually, I would love to have a gentle descent into a pasture in West Virginia somewhere.
"Goldang Myrtle. It's a UFO in our asparagus. Fetch me my shootin iron"
"Hold yer fire, I bet it's a top secret space vault from the Bilderbergs. These things have been circling around since we went off the gold standard"
"You see that red star. That means MARS, woman. Stand back. I'm a gonna blast it"
"Don't hit my pansies!"
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
This sounds like a great chance to charter a cruise ship to sail near ground zero and watch it fall in the sky. What a party! Plus you can invite your favorite space mutated earth fungas.
It's one of the most expensive and best fireworks show ever!
Personally I was getting tired of the up-again down-again yo-yoing of Mir.
-Ben
Then you would not only have made up your mind, but you would have helped the Merkins make up theirs too...
They are still haggling and have a weak contract.
Russia increased its fee from $40 million to $100 million. The Survivor people thought they might meet the $40 million figure, but that wasn't firm. Even in dirt cheap Russian, space costs are probably higher than this.
Russian naval radarsats had an actual nuclear reactor aboard. The radioactive stuff landed in the Northern Territories in Canada were the remains of the reactor core.
I think the reactor was called Topaz.
US-A radarsats were not small - 3800 kg.
I have a much better idea!
Ferry up a few high-thrust ion engines or VASIMR rockets. Hell, even chemical rockets would do. Attatch them to Mir. Boost Mir up and park it next to the international space station. Tether them together, or figure out some other way to keep them near each other. Once the ISS gets big enough, you could even keep MIR in a holding bay.
Then, you have a make work renovation project for astronauts from the ISS, kind of like renovating an old house. Strip all the components out, expose the mold to solvents and/or vacuum to get rid of it. Voila! You have a space station or spacecraft shell that you can do anything you want with. Sure beats putting something that big on a rocket and putting it in orbit. Stripped down and rebuilt, the shell could easily be used for a MISSION TO MARS.
Real estate is real estate, no matter what it is. Mir is too valuable to throw into the Pacific! At $10,000 a pound to get something into orbit these days, MIR would be a huge asset to the ISS even as scrap metal! Russians have a lot to learn... No red-blooded capitalist would ever let such a prime piece of real estate fall into the sea, even dilapitated as it is.
Then again, Russians have learned a lot, perhaps they're increasing the pressure to get a better sale price. Thats my second guess. I sure hope Mir doesn't fall into the sea though!!!
Bork!
Michael Crichton was the author of this work, he is very prolific. His books and movies are always thought provoking, if a little on the cheesy side sometimes. Versatile as well, we're talking the same guy who's brainchild is also E.R., a good show and a very different genre than The Andromeda Strain. Unlike Arthur C. Clarke, Crichton doesn't attempt to turn his fiction into prognostications or forecasts, instead he puts a human element into action packed forward thinking near-future science fiction. Although; I wonder if he isn't just a little bit prescient with that space fungus on Mir that may soon take over the Earth!
There is probably a sizeable market of people who would pay $100,000 for a week in space (500,000 people x $100,000 = $50 billion). You probably need a space plane that can launch at $25-$50,000 per person to start with. Then a hab module attached to the Mir or Space Station Alpha.
Please note that we have linked the article "At Last, Mir to be Ditched" in error. It should go to:
Iridium Saved?
In fact, Mir has yet again been saved, and Iridium has once again been ditched.
Slashdot apologizes for continuously reporting the news before happens on these two issues.
'Koptev added: "Mir is in such poor condition any of its systems can go at anytime."'
It's good to know we have a large space station hovering over our heads whose orbit could destabalize and crash into us at any time. It's also amazing what you can find out about potential threats to the human population when governments are planning to do something *good*.
Oh well, 2/3rds of the earth are water, so the odds are only 33% against us if it does fail before it can be controlled.
Ace
So... The space fungus aliens have negotiated a deal with the Russian government and they will be given Earth.
Mir comes down in Feb... Alien space fungus rules the planet by 2005. Interesting that they have chosen to wipe out life in the Oceans first.
I'd like to have the solar panels to mount on my house's roof, in spite of teh fact that it rains most of the time around here. I'd like to have a lot of the stuff that's in there.
Let them put it on auction on e-Bay.
GCS/MU d- s+: a- C++$ USH++$ P- L+> E W++$ N o-- K- W++@ O-- M- !V PS Y+ PGP- t+ 5(+) X- R tv? b++++ y++(+++)
Of course, they are planning to have it enter "into a remote area of the Pacific Ocean". And so what island/archipelago/ship/tanker will be contaminated upon this splashdown? Bimini is already contaminated by nuclear tests from back in the 1950s. Other islands in the Pacific have been the host of other, more recent nuclear tests.
However, I'm glad that Mir will be gone soon. I'm getting sick of these incessant episodes of "This Old Mir".
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer