Re: Mir Today, Gone Tomorrow

Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Wed, 02 Jun 1999 18:58:55 -0700

> Chuck Kuecker wrote: ...It took an enormous amount of energy
> to get it all up there - how much more would it take to preserve it for
> either
> future use or as a monument to the history of space exploration?

A great deal, unfortunately. Otherwise they probably would have opted to do just that.

> It looks to me like the powers that be would rather enjoy a fireworks
> disply costing billions than spend a few thousand to preserve.

Well, it would be a few hundred million to boost it all to a really long lived orbit. Also, it would be fairly useless as a space station because it would end up in the Van Allen belts (high radiation.) {8-[ spike