RE: Mir Today, Gone Tomorrow

mark@unicorn.com
Wed, 2 Jun 1999 06:28:32 -0700 (PDT)

Chuck Kuecker [ckuecker@mcs.net] wrote:
>It looks to me like the powers that be would rather enjoy a fireworks
>disply costing billions than spend a few thousand to preserve. Remember
>Skylab!

Putting Mir into a long-lived orbit would cost at least hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars; dropping it into the atmosphere will cost a few million. No contest for a nation that would probably be bankrupt without American taxpayers' money.

NASA, of course, planned to save Skylab by using one of the early Shuttle flights to boost it into a higher orbit, but the shuttle was delayed by years and unexpectedly high drag brought Skylab down a few years early.

Mark