angkor writes "The date has been set. Space.com has the news. Mir will plunge into the Pacific Ocean on March 6, 2001. Farewell old friend!" It looks final this time. Update: 01/13 03:32 PM by michael: I swear we won't post about Mir anymore until the pieces start raining down. :)
Sounds like they are building a free-floater that will co-orbit & can dock w/ ISS so it can use the same re-supply mechanisms as ISS but yet be completely independent so you don't have to fill out 7 kg of paperwork before you can dock w/ it.
It also seems as if Titov has approval to go on ISS in April. We'll see how it all works out though. Should be interesting.
Why does this come to a surprise to everyone, everything up in space has a intended lifespan, MIR has far out lived its expectations. Its actualy pretty remarkable engineering, look how long it too america to finaly get a space station into orbit. I respect NASA, but i wish they would actualy get going and quit stalling.
This is really too bad. 100+ tons of equipment are basically being thrown away, and that's a damn shame. If US export restrictions hadn't stopped MirCorp from exporting the METS electrodynamic tether to Russia for launch to the Mir, Mir could have been put into a high storage orbit.
METS uses an electrical cable that's deployed a few kilometers towards the earth that has an electrical charge run through it to act against the Earth's magnetic field and push whatever it's attached to upwards. Using this, Mir could be at 400 or 500 miles up now, safe from danger of atmospheric drag and all at the cost of one Progress launch (METS fits on one Progress).
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There is a link here.
Sounds like they are building a free-floater that will co-orbit & can dock w/ ISS so it can use the same re-supply mechanisms as ISS but yet be completely independent so you don't have to fill out 7 kg of paperwork before you can dock w/ it.
It also seems as if Titov has approval to go on ISS in April. We'll see how it all works out though. Should be interesting.
-Jay Thomas
http://www.uiuc.edu/~jthomas2
Why does this come to a surprise to everyone, everything up in space has a intended lifespan, MIR has far out lived its expectations. Its actualy pretty remarkable engineering, look how long it too america to finaly get a space station into orbit. I respect NASA, but i wish they would actualy get going and quit stalling.
-| My other ride is your mom |-
Is this now a new species?
and as such, is it subject to the endangered species act?
(Waitaminute - they're russians!)
or is this going a bad movie version of the Andromenda Strain?
I imagine that this fungus problem will be something that they will have plenty of time to sort out on the new space station.
That may be the ultimate problem to long distance space travel.
Avoiding being consumed by space fungus.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
This is really too bad. 100+ tons of equipment are basically being thrown away, and that's a damn shame. If US export restrictions hadn't stopped MirCorp from exporting the METS electrodynamic tether to Russia for launch to the Mir, Mir could have been put into a high storage orbit.
METS uses an electrical cable that's deployed a few kilometers towards the earth that has an electrical charge run through it to act against the Earth's magnetic field and push whatever it's attached to upwards. Using this, Mir could be at 400 or 500 miles up now, safe from danger of atmospheric drag and all at the cost of one Progress launch (METS fits on one Progress).
Sigh....