From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Sun Sep 07 2003 - 12:36:00 MDT
On Sun, Sep 07, 2003 at 08:33:31AM -0400, Technotranscendence wrote:
>
> It would've been a lot better to keep both Skylab (downed sometime in
> the late 1970s, I believe) and Mir. For a fraction of the ISS budget, I
> bet, Mir could've been refurbished.
Skylab was going to be reboosted when Shuttle came on line.
However, the first Shuttle flights were originally scheduled
for 1977 but delayed until 1981. Meanwhile, when the solar
maximum hit around 1977, the ionosphere expanded, drag on
Skylab increased, and Skylab deorbited two years before the
expected date (1979).
Mir *was* refurbished -- its original design life was
something like three to five years, but the Russians kept
it running for more than double that.
-- Charlie
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