After 15 years, the Russian space station Mir will burn this week, but not only the metal from which the spacecraft is built will go up in flames, but much more
By: Marcia Dunn E-mail
It's not just the metal the spacecraft is made of that will go up in flames at Cape Canaveral, Florida. 15 years after it was first launched, the "Mir" space station will dive into the Pacific Ocean this Thursday. But not only the metal of which the spacecraft is made will go up in flames, but much more.
For example, all the hundred books of the astronaut Shannon Lucid, Michael Powell's running shoes, Andrew Thomas' nail file and Norman Taggard's extra suit of uniform. The American astronauts who lived aboard the Russian space station were happy to save some of the things they left behind, as well as some Russian objects and even pieces of the spacecraft itself.
Thomas said on Friday from the International Space Station that if he could, he would bring back with him the photo of Yuri Gagarin - the first man in space - that hangs in the spacecraft's kitchen. Another picture has hung there for years, but the first American in Mir, Taggard, isn't sure it's worth saving.
"It's an almost pornographic image that was hanging in the bathroom, an image that could offend women," recalls Taggard from Tallahassee, where he serves as a professor of electronics at the University of Florida.
The pornographic image, Gagarin's portrait, a Russian icon and Lucid's library will all be burned in what Lucid calls, "the biggest book burning." Senior officials in the Russian space program determined that Mir's end will occur, accompanied by flames, this Thursday.
The books will burn together with Mir
Lucid's books were gifted to her by her daughters. Most of them are used paperback books. The covers of the hardcover books were torn before takeoff, to reduce their weight. Lucid arranged the books on temporary shelves during the six months she was on the spacecraft in 1996, the longest period of time an American had been in space. But the books were kept in Spectre, a wing in Mir that was damaged in a collision with another spaceship in 1997 and closed.
"I felt bad when they had to close Spectre, because that's where all my books were," said Lucid, who works in the ground control division of the shuttle's current mission. "I enjoyed thinking that I left a library in space." In the closed wing are also Poel's personal belongings. His running shoes and clothes, and even his toothbrush, were in the wing when the collision occurred.
In total, seven Americans lived on and off aboard the Shuttle from 1995 to 1998. They trained for a stay on the International Space Station, which now orbits the Earth along with the space shuttle Discovery.
What changed was really
Jerry Linenger, who helped put out a serious fire that broke out in Mir in 1997, says he would have saved the window through which he looked out into space. "It kind of symbolizes what Meer really was," says Linanger from Michigan, where he currently lives. "You see the sky, the stars, the future."
Thomas was happy to save the kitchen in Mir who provided food. Tigrad will compromise on his blue uniform suit, and the toilets in Mir. "When I lecture, one of the questions that comes up, especially for children, is: 'What do toilets look like in space?'" says Tagrad. "It will be a good display item."
After reluctantly deciding to dispose of the aging Mir space station, the Russian inspectors chose an isolated area in the Pacific Ocean for its crash, far from any inhabited land. But the area is not isolated enough for determined tourists.
The Californian public relations company "Haring", rented a plane to fly to the site itself, for enthusiastic space enthusiasts and TV crews. The organizers claim that the flight is safe, and explain that they are interested in photographing the sight of the burning space station fragments as they fall towards Earth. On the other hand, the director of the Russian space agency compares this flight to a suicide jump from a bridge.
More than 50 people paid about $6,500 each – and a little more for a window seat – to watch the historic event. Four Russian cosmonauts will stay on board the plane, to watch the destruction of what was their home in space.
