I find it interesting Russia is reviving MIR after the abandonment last august. i just totally guessing, but did the really empty out the spacecraft for the rollover?????????????

http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpin1y.htm

-- spacey (spaced@out.com), January 26, 2000

Answers

They supposedly left for lack of funds, probably took everything valuable except what was needed to guide it. It was said a week or so ago that some private rich bastard was giving the Russians money to keep it going. He wants to turn it into a sauna so he can take his business clients up there to pretend like they are James Bond while they sip martinis and discuss their dirty dealings.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 27, 2000.

LOL, remember the movie CONTACT with Jodie Foster, the bald guy was on MIR. wonder if it was predictive. LOL some more

-- spacey (spaced@out.com), January 27, 2000.

spacey, you didn't think I was joking did you? I know, it's bizarre.. when I read what I had written I thought.. sheesh, that sounds like something from "Breakfast of Champions" by Vonnegut, but hey, like they say, the truth is stranger than fiction.

Mir touted as orbiting business park cum space spa

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- A U.S. tycoon is pumping millions of dollars into a plan to save Russia's Mir space station, hoping to transform the empty outpost into an orbiting business park and a vacation resort for highfliers.

Walt Anderson, a Washington-based venture capitalist who has made a fortune in telecommunications companies, has put up $7 million and plans to spend another $14 million to lease the 14-year-old station and renovate it for a money-making venture, business associates of Anderson's said Thursday.

Anderson's investment is being channeled through his Bermuda-based holding company Gold & Appel, with the final paperwork due to be completed by the end of the month, the associates said.

A new company, Mir Corp. Ltd., will be formed by Anderson along with other, unnamed investors and the Russian space company RSC Energia, which owns the empty station.

The new company, which will be based in a yet-to-be-determined third country, will take charge of the project, said Jeffrey Manber, former managing director of RSC Energia's U.S. division and president of Mir Corp.

"There have been other, previous efforts (to save Mir) which have not been very serious. This is an extremely serious effort and we want to be very careful," Manber told Reuters in an interview, stressing that the final deal with the Russians had yet to be signed.

"We believe that if we are successful, the renovation of Mir will be one of the great undertakings of the century," Manber said. "People worldwide will share in the pleasure and the drama of keeping the Mir open for business. But the challenges ahead are great."

'Deorbiting' was in works

If it works, the plan to save Mir will have come just in time. The station, deserted since the last Russian cosmonauts left in August 1999, was slated to be "deorbited" and crashed into the Pacific Ocean unless officials could come up with funds to keep it in space.

But in an announcement in Moscow on Wednesday, Russia's space agency said it was prepared to send a crew of cosmonauts on a 45-day mission to Mir at the end of March.

Spokesman Alexander Gorbunov said the space agency's director and chief designers had agreed to use what he called "nonbudgetary financing" to pay for the trip and was awaiting final government approval of the plan January 20.

Anderson did not return calls from Reuters seeking comment Thursday. But he told the San Jose Mercury News that Mir represented "a huge opportunity." "Yes, it's old, and, yes, it has a few problems. Yet any old building has that. You don't tear down an old building because it has a few heating and air-conditioning problems. You renovate it," he said.

Mir's problems go far beyond heating and air conditioning, however. Launched in 1986, Mir has ensured Russian predominance in long-term manned space flight and has given Russian scientists a head start in designing the living quarters for the new $60 billion International Space Station.

Now in orbit long past its original five-year life span and plagued by problems, Mir suffered a near-deadly fire in 1997 and a crippling crash that forced one section to be sealed off because of a punctured hull.

Cosmic fixer-upper

That air leak -- along with other problems of age, including corrosion, metal fatigue and chemical contamination -- make any rehab job on Mir likely to be a major undertaking. And the costs of maintaining manned operations on Mir has been put at $250 million per year.

But the Mir Corp. group is confident the station can be cleaned up and expanded to become a base for lucrative commercial operations such as orbital satellite repair and pharmaceutical research.

It would also be revamped to welcome rich space tourists, a plan that has the definite advantage of both an established facility already in orbit and -- thanks to Russian rockets -- a way to get there.

Anderson told the Mercury News that he believed that the first "citizen explorer" would pay as much as $40 million for the ride but that the price would eventually drop to "a more reasonable $20 million to $25 million."

Manber said that while it was premature to discuss details of the space tourism plan, it definitely was part of the overall scheme to bring Mir back to life.

"Yes, one idea is a tourism spot," Manber said. "I would prefer to call it a destination location."

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 27, 2000.

BTW, yes, I remember the movie "Contact" (one of my favorites), and you're referring to Mr. Hadden. Floating in the MIR station, he asks Jodie Foster.. "Wanna take a ride"? Great flick!

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 27, 2000.

Hawk,

If I had a billion I would be MORE than happy to part with 20 million or so to spend a few days in space. Russia, having already built the thing, might as well make use of it.

Looking Skyward,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.com), January 27, 2000.

Frank, I think it is bizarre, but I didn't mean to imply that it was necessarily a bad idea. Russia is definitely wise to get what they can out of it before it burns up. Of course the tycoon has every right to do what he likes with his money, but it just seems so bizarre to me that millions of dollars will be spent so that a few people can have a little party in space, while on the surface below millions of children will be starving to death. Life is getting really strange.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 27, 2000.

"Anderson's investment is being channeled through his Bermuda-based holding company Gold & Appel,"

..all hail discordia!

-- number six (!@!.com), January 27, 2000.

After those Russians spent years up in their MIR, how does one "air it out" first? I don't think a can of Glade will do it. Ugh!

-- Richard (Astral-Acres@webtv.net), January 27, 2000.

Hawk,

True. I guess what the elephant looks like to you depends on the part you end up holding.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.com), January 27, 2000.

Hawk said, "...but it just seems so bizarre to me that millions of dollars will be spent so that a few people can have a little party in space, while on the surface below millions of children will be starving to death. Life is getting really strange."

That is a very socialistic comment, and the "getting really strange" idea ignores the fact that the rich have _always_ bought what they wanted, not what the socialists felt they should.

The reason that children are starving is that their parents brought them into the world whether their parents could afford to feed them or not. (I'll leave the determinations as to why that happens as an exercise for the reader.)

Do you remember the slogan to the effect that poor planning on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on my part? This is a semi-humorous way of saying that if you make your bed you have to lie in it. It is an admonition to take responsibility for one's own actions. This also implies that _no one else_ is responsible for you. Now, apply that to the children. If one chooses to, it might be nice to help support some of the poor, but there is no obligation that I see for one to do it. And the notion that one should feel guilt (as comments like yours are trying to engender) just because children are starving is false. If I did not father the child, it is _not_ my responsibility, socialists of the world to the contrary notwithstanding.

George

-- George Valentine (georgevalentine@usa.net), January 27, 2000.

Whatever you say, pig. Enjoy your space flight, I hope you get hit by an asteroid. :-)

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 27, 2000.

Hawk said, "Whatever you say, pig...." in response to my response to him.

Henceforth I shall ignore him. Were we on a news group, I'd probably learn how to killfile so I could killfile him. If all he can do is resort to name calling when his ideas are attacked as socialist tripe, he deserves nothing better.

George

-- George Valentine (georgevalentine@usa.net), January 27, 2000.

Ick. To each his own. I wouldn't go up in that if somebody paid me $25 Million.

-- Jenny, Earth Girl (jenny41@aol.com), January 27, 2000.

Wasn't there also talk of a movie film crew type going up as one of the crewmembers to film scenes of movie on-board Mir? I think it was a British film company which was talking with the Russians, and fifteen million was the discussed pricetag.

Hey, if they can take an unfinished nuclear power plant in South Carolina and film underwater movie scenes there, why not make space movies aboard the Mir?

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 27, 2000.