Mir: Rest in Pieces

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

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

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

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

Good guesses:

• 2001-03-23 02:02:02 - looks like 'cowkiller' is our champion Mir-guesser
• 2001-03-23 04:07:33
• 2001-03-23 04:27:42
• 2001-03-23 04:37:28
• 2001-03-22 21:37:19
• 2001-03-22 21:21:21
• 2001-03-23 06:12:25

Comments

Video footage

[rleyton]

Ok, so the book might not be out yet, and i've no idea about t-shirts, but the movie is here, and lots more besides at the good old BBC.

Re:Enough with the taco's already.

[birder]

If in 25 years Mir is mentioned along with a footnote to Taco Bell... then we (as Americans) have done a great evil.

It's already going to happen. Haven't you seen Demolition Man?

re-entry pictures

[rehannan]

Space.com has some pictures of MIR's re-entry. MIR hit the water at 05:58 GMT Mar 23.

ObStarWars

[mrBlond]

That's not a meteor, it's a space station!
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mrBlond

Yahoo! had this pic

[NonSequor]

Here. Pretty good picture of Mir coming down in flaming chunks.

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

Wonder what the next Mir story would be ?

[SirFlakey]

"Mir, after successfully entering the earth athmosphere and crashing into the ocean has resurfaced and is on a direct collision course with Tokyo (which holds a patent on catastrophic dinosaur distruction)"
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