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March 22-23, 2001
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New Frontier in Space
| What Goes Up |
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What goes up, must come down, as the old saying goes. Such is the case with the Russian space station Mir. While there had once been speculation that Mir might someday serve as an Earth-orbiting hotel for wealthy travelers, such plans are expected to come crashing to Earth on Friday, March 23, with Mir's scheduled reentry into Earth's atmosphere. Russian space officials decided to bring the 15-year-old Mir down from space because of deteriorating conditions and outdated technology aboard the space station, which has been vacant and mold-infested for about a year. Scientists have been lowering Mir by about 1 mile (1.5 km) each day. When Mir is within 137 miles of Earth, a series of thruster firings will position it for its final descent. When the space station finally plummets into the atmosphere at 17,895 mph, two-thirds of the 135-ton station will burn up immediately.
Some of the remaining thousand or so remnants—some as large as compact cars—will fall like rain over a remote location in the South Pacific Ocean between Australia and Chile.
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| Technology Transition |
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By the end of its life, Mir had become so rife with technical problems that the cosmonauts onboard had to abandon most of their research to make continuous repairs to the station. Even in the best of conditions, they could only devote about 8% of their time to researching the effects of lengthy space travel on humans. Such research is necessary if humans are ever to explore other planets or remain in space for extended periods of time. The International Space Station will be taking up where Mir left off. Astronauts onboard the half-finished, 171-foot-long station will spend at least 20% of their time studying the effects of long-term space travel. The sophisticated equipment onboard the space station includes an ultrasound system that will monitor crewmembers' hearts and circulatory systems.
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| Up Close and Personal |
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Some people, including four Russian cosmonauts, have chartered a commercial jet plane that will take them close enough to the reentry point to watch the fireworks (and hopefully not get injured). The trip organizers believe that the Mir reentry will provide an extraordinary celestial display.
While Russian officials are fairly confident that no Mir fragments will hit populated areas, they have taken out a $200 million insurance policy just in case. According to NASA, asteroids weighing as much as Mir hit Earth's atmosphere about 10 times a year.
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