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VK3CE > MIR 23.03.01 20:37l 71 Lines 2993 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 35942_VK4KIJ
Read: GUEST OE7FMI
Subj: MIR -- THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES
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Sent: 010323/1540Z @:VK4KIJ.#SUN.QLD.AUS.OC #:35942 [Woombye] $:35942_VK4KIJ
From: VK3CE@VK4KIJ.#SUN.QLD.AUS.OC
To : MIR@WW
Fraternal greetings to all.
So much has been said and written about the Russian Mir Space
Station, now sadly gone after 15 splendid years. There has been
a lot of mail circulating about Mir of late. But what I most seem
to be hearing and reading is critical, not complimentary, and I
think this a very sad commentary on the remarkable vision
that was Mir.
I wonder how many of the knockers might pause to consider
some of the truly remarkable accomplishments of Mir, and to
congratulate the Russian pioneers who had the vision and
determination and tenacity to make Mir what history should
rightly consider it: a trail-blazer, a pioneer, and an absolute,
overwhelming success.
Mir was a project of the then early 1980s Cold War USSR, an
outpost to prove a nation's superiority once and for all. During
its career, however, it became far more than that. When first
put aloft, after years of research, planning and construction, it
actually had a planned service life of just three years. Three!
I think it would be fair to say that not many of the original Mir
team could have conceived of it still being aloft an incredible
15 years later!
When you think of Mir, think of the accomplishments, think of
the successes. And remember, in any search for true
understanding and achievement, one should expect the
occasional hurdle. The Mir team faced its hurdles, and
overcame them time and again.
As one who had the privilege of speaking to one of my fellow
countrymen aboard Mir, not once but many times over the
course of several months, I believe we should congratulate the
Russian space team on their ingenuity time and again and
proven shining abilities. No matter what went wrong, they
came up with fixes. Perhaps history should look upon Mir as
the platform upon which man worked out how to sustain long-
duration space flights on a realistic budget.
News commentaries report that a substantial majority of the
Russian peoples -- more than 70 per cent -- wanted Mir to
remain aloft. Yet the station was well beyond its planned
service life, and economic realities had to be faced. Russia has
new space challenges to face, and a new international platform
on which to demonstrate its capabilities.
I am sure that Dr Andy Thomas, to whom I spoke, and all of the
other cosmonauts and, later, astronauts who lived and worked
aboard Mir, would have felt more than a tinge of sadness
today, as Mir's illustrious career finally came to an end.
But he would have thrilled in recognising its more than 86,200
orbits, the role it had played in significantly increasing
mankind's understanding of work in space, including the more
than 400 days endured in one stint by one of its crew, the way
it broke through suspicion and mistrust to bring two former
enemies together in harmony... and its truly incredible voyage
of more than 3,313,548,000 kilometres!
Chris Edmondson, VK3CE
Editor, Radiomag magazine,
Australia
http://www.radiomag.com
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