"So you hear
the master alarm, and you see one of your crewmates floating back
trailing smoke, you know something serious is going
on."
Publishers note: Russia will de-orbit
the Mir space station next week, after 15 years of service, The
following feature recounts some of Mir's most famous moments and
serves as a reminder that keeping human beings in space is a tricky,
unpredictable and dangerous endeavour. Maybe that is why we continue
to do it.
"Requiem for Mir"
By Pat Duggins
Exclusive to OpenUniverse.com
In the science fiction movie, "Star Trek: First Contact," the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise go back in time for the maiden flight of the Starship Phoenix.
According to sci fi lore, it was the first spaceship to fly faster than the speed of light.
"I must have seen this ship a hundred times in the Smithsonian," said actor Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard during the movie, "but, I was never able touch it."
By contrast, the Russian Space Station Mir will never see the inside of a museum.
The 100-ton station was once the only game in town for long stays in space. The once mysterious symbol of Soviet space superiority took the ultimate high dive
following a nudge from an unmanned Progress space capsule that was locked to the aging station. After years as the jewel in the crown of the Russian space program,
Mir was brought down through the atmosphere for a fiery final bow. What wreckage was left plunged into the ocean. Oddly enough, that was the same fate as America's
first space station, Skylab.
Copyright © 2001 Pat Duggins and OpenUniverse.com
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