From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Tue Oct 24 2000 - 09:32:42 MDT
zeb haradon wrote:
>
> I think I did this.. or maybe I just signed up for NBCi.com. I went to the
> link posted (previous, weeks ago), and signed up.
> Unfortunately, the Mir thing is very unlikely to happen, Mir will be de-orbited. It was a great idea but MirCorp made the mistake of trusting the
> Russian government, who is giving mixed signals to everyone (what I
> understand from various articles is that the public story is that it will be
> dumped, and the story they're telling MirCorp is that they'll keep it up if
> funds can be secured). See:
> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/Science/Mir_Space_Station/
> For various related stories.
>
I'm not worried too much. According to MirCorp, the official in question
actually said that IF sufficient commercial funds cannot be raised, it will be
deorbited (one more example of 'don't trust the media'. MirCorp says they have
$110 million in funds and financing to keep Mir operating for another year, and
the dirty word is that Russian officials saying things like 'it will be
de-orbited' means that they are trying to pressure someone for a bribe...
NASA has been pressuring Russia to drop the Mir, no matter whether they get it
independently funded or not. This could be the same sort of territoriality that
NASA always does to try to shut out the competition (like it did in trying to
destroy the Saturn V plans when they were building the Space Shuttle). NASA has
had enough trouble selling the ISS to the public and the science community, if
there is a competetive station out there, they wont be able to charge a premium
for access...
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