>Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 12:04:05 -0400 (EDT)
>Reply-To: fpspace@SOLAR.RTD.UTK.EDU
>Originator: fpspace@solar.cini.utk.edu
>Sender: fpspace@SOLAR.RTD.UTK.EDU
>From: JamesOberg@aol.com
>To: Multiple recipients of list <fpspace@SOLAR.RTD.UTK.EDU>
>Subject: Mir defies Paris eclipse doom-sayer, gets unique view
>X-Comment: Friends and Partners in Space
>
>
>
>
>Mir defies eclipse doom-sayer, gets unique view
>By Patrick Lannin
>09:45 EDT 08-11-99
>
>MOSCOW, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Not only did Russia's ageing Mir space station
>defy fashion designer Paco Rabanne's prediction it would come crashing to
>earth during the eclipse on Wednesday, it also got the first view of the
>moon's shadow from space.
>
>Rabanne, basing his fears on the predictions of 16th century mystic
>Nostradamus, had predicted Mir would plummet into Paris during the eclipse,
>engulfing the city in a ball of fire.
>
>But the three cosmonauts orbiting the earth instead became the first people
>to see from space how the moon's shadow raced over the earth during the
>eclipse of the sun, controllers said.
>
>The two Russians and one French cosmonaut had two chances to observe the
>phenomenon during their orbit.
>
>``They (the cosmonauts) paid a lot of attention to the shadow of the moon
>moving over the earth's surface. This has never been seen by any person, no
>one has ever seen this before from space,'' said Viktor Blagov, deputy
flight
>chief.
>
>The last solar eclipse of the 20th century began at 0931 GMT off Canada's
>east coast near Nova Scotia. The shadow raced at 1,500 miles per hour (2,400
>kph) across the Atlantic Ocean. It ended when the sun set at 1230 GMT in
>India's Bay of Bengal.
>
>Russian NTV television showed the cosmonauts' film, with the huge black
>shadow sailing over the earth, blotting out a large patch of the earth and
>surrounded by masses of drifting clouds.
>
>Blagov said the shadow was filmed and photographed as it moved over the
>southern English port of Plymouth before heading over northern France.
>
>``The shadow was very clearly seen on the background of the clouds,'' he
>added.
>
>The diameter of the shadow turned out to appear somewhat larger than the 100
>km expected, although this was affected by the angle that the space station
>viewed it, Blagov added.
>
>He said that apart from the historic footage of the shadow of the moon
>captured by the cosmonauts, astronomers may also find useful scientific
>information from the film.
>
>Blagov said the cosmonauts would observe the sun itself when they got their
>second chance to view the eclipse.
>
>Mir is currently manned by Russians Viktor Afanasyev and Sergei Afdeyev and
>Frenchman Jean-Pierre Haignere.
>
>They are due to quit the space station on August 28 and leave it unmanned in
>orbit for several months as the cash- strapped Russian government seeks
funds
>to keep it in space.
>
>If new funds are not found, the station will probably be brought to earth
>early next year. But instead of crashing into Paris, it should be guided
>safely into the Pacific Ocean.
>
>-----------
>
>Paris ``survivors'' toast Mir space station
>09:54 08-11-99
>
>PARIS, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Fashion designer Paco Rabanne had predicted that
>the Russian space station Mir would smash into Paris during Wednesday's
>eclipse.
>
>In the end, all that fell to earth was a box of soap suds.
>
>Champagne corks popped as a few hundred people gathered outside the fashion
>designer's chic shop in central Paris and celebrated their city's survival.
>
>As the sky darkened shortly after 1000 GMT, followers of the ``F++K the
>Apocalypse'' campaign unfurled a firemans' catchnet in front of Rabanne's
>store in case Mir came hurtling down.
>
>The spacecraft remain safely in orbit, but someone threw down a box of local
>brand Mir washing powder from an upstairs floor instead.
>
>Rabanne, famed for far-out designs, had forecast in a best-selling book
based
>on writings by the 16th century seer Nostradamus that Mir would fall from
the
>sky and hit the Chateau de Vincennes military fort in eastern Paris on
>Wednesday.
>
>``We wanted to ridicule Paco Rabanne,'' a spokesman for the organisers said.
>
>He said Rabanne had pledged to refrain from any future prediction if he was
>proved wrong. ``He promised silence, that's the news of the day.''
>
>Rabanne, who had announced he was quitting Paris and the fashion industry
and
>told his employees to stay far away from the city on the day of the eclipse,
>was nowhere to be found.
>
>``I am a bit disappointed. I wanted to see Mir,'' a bystander said.
>
>
>