Mir
Published on Jul 19, 2007 at 11:19 am.
2 Comments.
Filed under space exploration, space station, wonders.
My sixth suggestion for the 7 wonders of space exploration is the Mir space station. Currently, the International Space Station gets all the press, and some reporters that I’ve heard talking about it on TV have made it sound like the ISS is the first space station to orbit Earth. That couldn’t be farther from the truth! The ISS is really about the tenth space station to orbit the Earth. The first was Salyut 1, launched by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1971. The crew of Soyuz 11 occupied Salyut 1 for over three weeks before returning to Earth on June 30, 1971. Sadly, when recovery crews opened the capsule upon landing, they found the three cosmonauts on board to be dead. Apparently a valve had opened on the spacecraft while it was still in orbit preparing to return to Earth. The air escaped from the capsule too quickly for the cosmonauts to close the valve before they passed out.
The Soviets launched a number of further Salyuts, together with at least one dedicated military space station, culminating with Salyut 7, launched April 19, 1982. Salyut 7 was a new breed of space station. Rather than being a complete unit, it was designed in a modular manner, so that additional components could be added after launch. This paved the way for Mir, which was designed from the beginning to be modular, allowing it to grow from an initial module that was little more than an advanced Salyut to its final form, consisting of 7 modules, and multiple solar arrays for a combined mass of about 120 metric tons.
America’s first (and to date only solely American) space station was Skylab, launched on May 14, 1973. Skylab’s core was essentially a modified third stage for the massive Saturn V rocket. Skylab was far larger and more capable than any of the Salyuts, with Skylab holding laboratories and even a solar observatory. However, only three crews visited Skylab, and the station was left to fall back to Earth on its own, breaking apart over the Indian Ocean and showering debris across Australia. Skylab would remain the largest space station ever to orbit Earth until late in Mir’s assembly. National pride would have had me to select Skylab as the next wonder, but I honestly think that the space station honor should go elsewhere. Nonetheless, Skylab deserves mention, as it was the largest and most capable space station to have been launched for decades to come. Sadly, the United States did not follow up with additional space stations. NASA had plans to build additional space stations, and even plans for a reusable vehicle to assist in construction, supply, and crew transfer for these space stations. Eventually, NASA got the vehicle, in the form of the Space Shuttle, but no space station for it to shuttle to and from.
However, the Soviets were not just sitting around. They continued to launch Salyut space stations, learning from their experiences with multiple crews, long duration missions, and supply procedures for space stations. Salyut 7 was the next generation space station: one that could be built upon. Salyut 7 remained operational for four years, with numerous cosmonauts visiting the station and numerous extravehicular activities (space walks).
The core for the Mir space station, which served as primary crew quarters and an attachment point for future modules, was launched February 19, 1986, before Salyut 7 was abandoned. For a while, there were actually two Soviet space stations in orbit. Mir’s core was like an improved Salyut, but with a multi-docking port at one end to which more modules could be connected. It was designed from the very beginning to be part of a much larger structure. This was even more ambitious than Salyut 7, making Mir the first of a new generation of space station. The current International Space Station owes much to Mir and the experience that the Soviet Union had with building it. For ten years following the launch of the Mir core module, additional modules were added. Mir holds the record for the longest duration space mission by any one cosmonaut as well as the longest continual habitation of a space station in orbit (ten years straight, with rotating crew). Mir’s early years were like that of earlier space stations, with crew leaving before other crew arrived. However, eventually crew rotations began to occur with crew replacing existing crew. Mir also was the first space station in which crew arrived on one spacecraft and left on another. Mir continued to be occupied until the last two cosmonauts left on June 16, 2000. Mir’s orbit gradually decayed until it was intentionally deorbited March 23, 2001, over the Pacific Ocean. Mir was in orbit, and occupied, when the Soviet Union fell. The Russians took over operation of Mir, making it the first (and only) time that an existing space project has been operated by two successive governments. A total of 39 spacecraft visited Mir during its existence, a record number.
Mir also marked a new era of international cooperation in space exploration. An agreement between the United States and Russia provided for joint experiments and crew aboard Mir. Eventually, a module was added to Mir permitting the Space Shuttle to dock with Mir, finally allowing the Space Shuttle to shuttle to a space station as had originally been planned. Nine shuttle missions were to the Mir space station. A module where American experiments were conducted and American astronauts slept while on board was also part of Mir. This was not the very first joint international manned spaceflight, though. That was the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project of July, 1975, in which an Apollo capsule docked with a Soyuz spacecraft in Earth orbit, but the Mir missions were far more extensive. The first space tourists also flew to Mir aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The joint operations of NASA with the Russian space program paved the way for the joint operation of the International Space Station.
So, it is for the many accomplishments of Mir that I picked it as the 6th wonder of my seven instead of the larger and newer International Space Station, which is still under construction. Granted, the ISS is much nicer, and is far cleaner looking than Mir, with it’s haphazard looking solar panels. But, I felt that Mir was probably a better choice.
-Astroprof
Image credit:Â Wikimedia
Astroprof’s Page » Seven Wonders? on July 19, 2007 at 4:41 pm: 1
[…] 6) Mir: Not the first space station, but still a very important one. […]
Gordon R. Vaughan on July 20, 2007 at 2:33 pm: 2
That’s a great photo of Mir, with the Progress or Soyuz (not sure which) parked in front.
In the 90’s, a lot of Americans griped about Mir and its problems, but they were up there getting real space station experience, while 15 years later the ISS still isn’t finished. The Russians deserve a lot more respect for their engineering and for all the YEARS of spaceflight experience they racked up with the Salyuts and Mir.
Apparently they did have a really tough time keeping much order in their stations, with cables, etc. running through hatches, stuff getting misplaced, etc., but there’s apparently a growing storage/organizational problem on the ISS now, too.