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Shuttle–Mir program

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The Shuttle-Mir program was a collaborative space program between Russia and the United States, which involved American Space Shuttles visiting the Russian space station Mir, Russian cosmonauts flying on the Shuttle and American astronauts staying aboard Mir for long periods of time.

The program, under the code name 'Phase One', was intended to allow the United States to learn from Russian experience into long-duration spaceflight and to foster a spirit of cooperation between the two nations and their respective space agencies in preparation for 'Phase Two' of the joint project, the International Space Station. Announced in 1993 with the first mission occurring in 1995, the program continued until its scheduled completion in 1998, consisting of eleven shuttle flights and almost 1000 days in space for US astronauts over seven expeditions.

Background

File:Atlantis Docked to Mir.jpg
Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to Mir on STS-71.

In June 1992, American president George H. W. Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed to join hands in space exploration by signing the "Agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes", setting up a short, joint space program, during which one US astronaut would board the Russian space station Mir and two Russian cosmonauts would board a Space Shuttle. Then, in September 1993, US Vice-president Al Gore and Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announced plans for a new space station, later to be called the International Space Station, or ISS. They also agreed that, in preparation for this new project, the US would be largely involved in the Mir program in the years ahead, under the name 'Phase One' (the construction of the ISS being Phase Two).[1]

During the course of the program, eleven Space Shuttle missions flew to the station, carrying out crew exchanges, flying a docking module and a new set of solar arrays to Mir and conducting a myriad of scientific experiments aboard the space station. The program also saw the Russian space agency receiving millions of dollars of funding from NASA, permitting them to launch two new modules, Spektr and Priroda, to Mir, which the US used to conduct the majority of their science aboard the station. These missions allowed NASA and the Russian space agency to learn a great deal about how best to work with international partners in space and how to minimise the risks associated with assembling a large space station - the ISS - in orbit.[2][3]

In addition to these scientific advances, the program would also serve as a political ruse on the part of the American government, allowing NASA to take part in the funding of the cripplingly under-funded Russian space program. This in turn allowed the newly-fledged Russian government to keep Mir operating, in addition to the space program as a whole, a purpose which continues into Phase Two, ensuring the Russian government remained (and remains) friendly towards the United States.[4][5]

Increments

In addition to the flights of the Shuttle to Mir, Phase One also featured seven 'Increments' aboard the station, periods of time where US astronauts took part in long-duration expeditions when no shuttle was docked. The Increments allowed the US to share and learn from the unique experience that Russia had with long duration space expeditions in preparation for expeditions aboard the ISS.

The seven US astronauts who carried out long-duration Increments on Mir.

The seven US astronauts who took part in the Increments, Norman Thagard, Shannon Lucid, John Blaha, Jerry Linenger, Michael Foale, David Wolf and Andrew Thomas, were each flown in turn to Star City, Russia, to undergo training in various aspects of the operation of Mir and the Soyuz spacecraft used for transport to and from the Station, practice in carrying out spacewalks outside Mir and lessons in the Russian language, which would be used throughout their missions to talk with the other cosmonauts aboard the station and Mission Control in Russia, the TsUP.

During their expeditions aboard Mir, the astronauts carried out various experiments, including growth of crops and crystals, and took hundreds of photographs of the Earth spinning beneath them. They also assisted in the maintenance and repair of the ageing station, following various incidents with fires, collisions, power losses, uncontrolled spins and toxic leaks.

In all, the American astronauts would spend more than a thousand days aboard Mir, allowing NASA to learn a great deal about long-duration spaceflight, particularly in the areas of astronaut psychology and how best to arrange experiment schedules for crews aboard space stations.[4][5]

Mir

Main article: Mir
The view of Mir from Space Shuttle Atlantis as she approached the station during STS-76.

Mir itself was the world's first modular space station, constructed between 1986 and 1996. It was humanity's first consistently inhabited long-term research station in space, and currently holds the record for longest continuous human presence in space at eight days short of 10 years. Mir's purpose was to provide a large and habitable scientific laboratory in space, and, through a number of collaborations, including Phase One, it was made internationally accessible to cosmonauts and astronauts of many different countries. The station existed until 23 March 2001, at which point it was deliberately de-orbited, and broke apart during atmospheric re-entry.

Mir was based upon the Salyut series of space stations previously launched by the Soviet Union (seven Salyut space stations had been launched since 1971), and was mainly serviced by Russian-manned Soyuz spacecraft and Progress cargo ships, although was anticipated that it would also be the destination for flights by the later-abandoned Buran space shuttle. The visiting US Space Shuttles used a modified docking collar originally designed for Buran, mounted on a bracket originally designed for use with the American Space Station Freedom.

With the Space Shuttle docked to Mir the temporary enlargements of living and working areas amounted to a complex that was the world's largest spacecraft at that time in space history, with a combined mass of 250 metric tonnes.[6][7]

Space Shuttle

Main article: Space Shuttle
File:Stssstack.jpg
An overhead view of Atlantis as it sits atop the Mobile Launcher Platform (MLP) before STS-79.

NASA's Space Shuttle, officially called the Space Transportation System (STS), is the United States government's current manned launch vehicle. A total of five usable orbiters were built, of which three remain. The winged shuttle orbiter is launched vertically, usually carrying five to seven astronauts (although eight have been carried and eleven could be accommodated in an emergency) and up to 50,000 lb (22,700 kg) of payload into low earth orbit (the thermosphere). When its mission is complete, it fires its manoeuvring thrusters to drop out of orbit and re-enters the Earth's atmosphere. During the descent and landing, the Shuttle Orbiter acts as a glider and makes a completely unpowered landing.

The Shuttle is the first orbital spacecraft designed for partial reusability. It carries large payloads to various orbits, and, during the Shutle-Mir program, provided crew rotation to Mir and carried various supplies and pieces of equipment to the station. Each Shuttle was designed for a projected lifespan of 100 launches or 10 years' operational life.

During the course of Phase One, Mir was visited by Space Shuttles Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, with Atlantis in particular flying seven straight missions to the station from 1995 - 1997.[8][9]

Timeline

1994

The Shuttle-Mir program begins - Discovery launches on STS-60, the first flight of the program.

Phase One finally began on 3 February 1994 with the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-60, the first Shuttle flight of that year. The eight-day mission, the 18th for Discovery, was the first ever flight of a Russian Cosmonaut, Sergei Krikalev, aboard the US Shuttle, and marked the opening of a new era in cooperative spaceflight for the two nations, twenty-five years after the Space Race began.[10] As part of an international agreement on human space flight, the mission was the second flight of the Spacehab pressurised module and marked the 100th "Get Away Special" payload to fly in space. The primary payload for the mission, the Wake Shield Facility, was designed to generate new semiconductor films for advanced electronics, and was flown at the end of Discovery's robotic arm over the course of the flight. During the mission, the astronauts aboard Discovery also carried out various experiments aboard the Spacehab module in the Orbiter's payload bay, and took part in a live bi-directional audio and downlink video hookup between themselves and the three Cosmonauts on board Mir, Valeri Polyakov, Viktor Afanasyev and Yury Usachev (flying Mir expeditions LD-4 and EO-15).[11][8][12]

1995

A view of Mir following Atlantis's undocking at the end of STS-71.

1995 began with the launch, on February 3, of STS-63, the second Space Shuttle flight in the program and the first flight of the US Shuttle with a female pilot, Eileen Collins. Referred to as the "near-Mir" mission, the flight saw the first rendezvous of a Space Shuttle with Mir during an eight day mission which carried Russian Cosmonaut Vladimir Titov and the rest of Discovery's crew to within 37 feet of Mir, before Collins performed a flyaround of the station. The mission, a dress rehearsal for the first docked mission in the program, STS-71, also carried out testing of various techniques and pieces of equipment that would be used during the docking missions that followed.[13][11][14]

A few months after Discovery's flight, the March 14 launch of Soyuz TM-21 saw the first US astronaut to fly on a Soyuz spacecraft and to board Mir, carrying expedition EO-18 to the station, consisting of Cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov & Gennady Strekalov and US Astronaut Norman Thagard. During the course of their 115 day expedition, the first US Increment in the program, the Spektr science module (which served as living and working space for American astronauts) was launched aboard a Proton rocket and docked to Mir, alongside more than 1500 pounds of research equipment from the US and other nations. The expedition's crew returned to Earth aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis following the first Shuttle-Mir docking during mission STS-71.[15][4][16]

The Mir Docking Module, positioned in Atlantis's payload bay on STS-74, ready to be docked to the Kristall module of space station Mir.

The primary objectives of STS-71, launched on 27 June, were to rendezvous Space Shuttle Atlantis with Mir and, on 29 June, perform the first docking between the Shuttle and the station, the first US-Russian docking since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975.[17] Following docking on June 29, Atlantis delivered expedition EO-19 to Mir, consisting of two cosmonauts, Anatoly Solovyev & Nikolai Budarin, carried out on-orbit joint US-Russian life sciences investigations aboard a Spacelab module, performed a logistical resupply of the Station and recovered US astronaut Norman Thagard & the rest of the EO-18 crew, returning Thagard, Dezhurov and Strekalov to Earth.[18][11][19]

The final Shuttle flight of 1995, STS-74, began with the November 12 launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis, and delivered the Russian-built Docking Module to Mir, along with a new pair of solar arrays and other hardware upgrades for the Station. The Docking Module was designed to provide more clearance for Shuttles in order to prevent any collisions with Mir's solar arrays during docking, a problem which had been overcome during STS-71 by relocating the station's Kristall module to a different location on the Station. The Docking Module, attached to Kristall's docking port, prevented the need for this procedure on further missions. During the course of the flight, the first for a Canadian astronaut (Chris Hadfield) aboard the US Shuttle, nearly 1000 pounds of water were transferred to Mir and experiment samples including blood, urine and saliva were moved to Atlantis for return to Earth.[20][11][21]

1996

A view of the Travers RADAR antenna on the newly-launched Priroda module during STS-79.

1996 saw the beginning of the continuous US presence aboard Mir, with STS-76, launching on March 22, carrying the second Increment astronaut, Shannon Lucid, to the station. The third docking mission, which again used Space Shuttle Atlantis, demonstrated logistics capabilities with a Spacehab module, and placed experiment packages on Mir's docking module during the first docked spacewalk, as well as transferring Lucid to Mir for her stay. The spacewalks, carried out from Atlantis's crew cabin, provided experience for astronauts in order to prepare for later assembly missions to the International Space Station.[22]

A record-breaking stay, Lucid became the first American woman to live on station, and, following a six-week extension to her Increment due to issues with Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters, her 188-day mission set the US single spaceflight record. During Lucid's time aboard Mir, the Priroda module, with about 2200 pounds of US science hardware, was docked to Mir, and Lucid made use of both Priroda and Spektr to carry out 28 different science experiments and serve as the US living quarters.[23][11]

File:Atlantis at Mir.jpg
Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to Mir during STS-81. The crew compartment, nose and a portion of the payload bay of Atlantis are visible, behind Mir's Kristall and Docking Modules.

Lucid's stay aboard the station finally came to a halt with the flight of Atlantis on STS-79, which launched on September 16, and was the first Shuttle mission to carry a double Spacehab module. During the mission, more than 4000 pounds of supplies were transferred to Mir, including water generated by Atlantis's fuel cells, and experiments including investigations into superconductors, cartilage development, and other biology studies. About 2000 pounds of experiment samples and equipment were also transferred back from Mir to Atlantis, making the total 6000 pound transfer the most extensive yet.[24]

This, the fourth docking, also saw John Blaha transferring onto Mir to take his place as resident Increment astronaut, with his stay on the station improving operations in several areas, including transfer procedures for a docked space shuttle, "hand-over" procedures for long duration American crew members and "Ham" amateur radio communications.

During his time aboard the station, two spacewalks were carried out in order to remove electrical power connectors from a 12-year old solar power array on the base block and reconnect the cables to the more efficient new solar power arrays recently delivered to the station. In all, Blaha spent four months with the Mir-22 Cosmonaut crew conducting material science, fluid science, and life science research, before returning to Earth the next year aboard Atlantis on STS-81.[25][11]

1997

1997 would prove to be an interesting year for the program, beginning with the first Shuttle flight for that year, STS-81, replacing Increment astronaut John Blaha with Jerry Linenger, after Blaha's 118-day stay aboard Mir. During this, the fifth docking, the crew of Atlantis moved supplies to the station (the most materials transferred between the two spacecraft to that date) and returned to Earth the first plants to complete a life cycle in space, a crop of wheat planted by Shannon Lucid. During five days of mated operations, the crews transferred nearly 6000 pounds of logistics to Mir, and transferred 2,400 pounds of materials back to Atlantis.

The STS-81 crew also tested the Shuttle Treadmill Vibration Isolation and Stabilization System (TVIS), designed for use in the Zvezda module of the International Space Station. The crew also fired the shuttle's small vernier jet thrusters during mated operations to gather engineering data for the ISS. After undocking, Atlantis performed a fly-around of Mir, leaving Linenger aboard the station for the most eventful Increment to date.[26][11]

A charred panel on board Mir following the fire.

During his Increment, Linenger became the first American to conduct a spacewalk from a foreign space station and in a non-American made spacesuit, performing the first test of the Russian-built Orlan-M spacesuit alongside Russian cosmonaut Vasili Tsibliyev. All three crewmembers of expedition EO-23 also performed a "fly-around" in the Soyuz spacecraft, first undocking from one docking port of the station, then manually flying to and redocking the capsule at a different location. This made Linenger the first American to undock from a space station aboard two different spacecraft (Space Shuttle and Soyuz).[15]

However, the Increment did not go smoothly, with Linenger and his Russian crewmates Vasily Tsibliyev & Alexandr Kaleri facing several difficulties including the most severe fire ever aboard an orbiting spacecraft (caused by a backup oxygen-generating device), failures of various on board systems, a near collision with a Progress resupply cargo ship during a long-distance manual docking system test and a total loss of station electrical power and, as a result, attitude control, resulting in a slow, uncontrolled "tumble" through space.[11][4][27][5]

Linenger was eventually succeeded by Anglo-American astronaut Michael Foale, carried up by Atlantis on STS-84, alongside Russian mission specialist Elena Kondakova. The STS-84 crew transferred 249 items between the two spacecraft, along with water, experiment samples, supplies and hardware. One of the first items transferred to Mir was an Elektron oxygen-generating unit, especially important after the fire that had occurred on February 23. In addition, during undocking on May 21, the crew stopped Atlantis three times while backing away, to collect data from a European sensor device designed for future rendezvous of ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) with the International Space Station.[28][11]

File:Damaged Spektr Solar Array.jpg
Damaged solar arrays on Mir's Spektr module following a collision with an unmanned Progress spacecraft in September 1997.

Foale's Increment proceeded fairly normally until June 25, when during the second test of the Progress manual docking system, TORU, the resupply ship collided with solar arrays on the Spektr module and crashed into the module's outer shell, holing the module and causing a depressurisation of the station, the first ever on-orbit depressurisation in the history of spaceflight. Only quick actions on the part of the crew, cutting cables leading to the module and closing Spektr's' hatch, prevented the crew abandoning the station in their Soyuz lifeboat. Their efforts stabilised the station's air pressure, whilst the pressure in Spektr, containing many of Foale's experiments and personal effects, dropped to a vacuum. Fortunately, food, water and other vital supplies were stored in other modules, and remarkable salvage and replanning effort by Foale and the science community maximized the scientific return.[11][4]

In an effort to restore some of the power and systems lost following the isolation of Spektr and to attempt to locate the leak, Mir's new commander Anatoly Solovyev and flight engineer Pavel Vinogradov carried out a risky slavage operation later in the mission, entering the empty module during a so-called "IVA" spacewalk, inspecting the condition of hardware and running cables through a special hatch from Spektr's systems to the rest of the station. Following these first investigations, Foale and Solovyev conducted a 6-hour EVA on the surface of Spektr to inspect the damage to the punctured module.[11][29]

After the disasters, the US Congress and NASA considered whether the US should abandon the program out of concern for astronauts' safety, but NASA administrator Daniel Goldin decided to continue the program, with the next flight, STS-86, bringing Increment astronaut David Wolf aboard Mir.

A view of Mir from Atlantis's window, showing several of the station's modules and the docked Soyuz capsule.

STS-86 performed the seventh Shuttle-Mir docking, the last of 1997, and during Atlantis's stay crew members Titov and Parazynski conducted the first joint US-Russian extravehicular activity during a Shuttle mission, the first in which a Russian wore a US spacesuit. During the 5-hour spacewalk on, the pair affixed a 121-pound Solar Array Cap to the Docking Module, for a future attempt by crew members to seal off the leak in Spektr's hull. The mission returned Foale to Earth, along with samples, hardware, and an old Elektron oxygen generator, and dropped Wolf off on the Station ready for his 128 day Increment. Wolf had originally been scheduled to be the final Mir astronaut, but was chosen to go on the Increment instead of astronaut Wendy Lawrence, who was deemed ineligible due to a change in Mir requirements after the Progress supply vehicle collision, which stated that all Mir crews must be trained and ready for spacewalks, and an EVA suit could not be prepared for Lawrence in time for launch.[30][11]

1998

Space Shuttle Discovery lands at the end of STS-91, bringing the Shuttle-Mir program to a close.

The final year of the Shuttle-Mir program began with the flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-89. The mission delivered Cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov to Mir and replaced David Wolf with Andy Thomas, following Wolf's 119 day Increment.[31][11]

During his Increment, the last of the program, Thomas worked on 27 science investigations in the areas of advanced technology, Earth sciences, human life sciences, microgravity research, and International Space Station risk mitigation. During his stay on Mir, considered the smoothest of the entire Phase One program, Thomas published weekly "Letters from the Outpost," and passed two milestones for length of spaceflight - 907 consecutive days in space by US astronauts since the launch of Shannon Lucid on the STS-76 mission in March 1996, and nearly 1000 days of occupancy by US astronauts dating back to Norman Thagard's trip to Mir in March 1995.[11]

Thomas finally returned to Earth on the final Shuttle-Mir mission, STS-91. The mission closed out Phase One, with the EO-25 and STS-91 crews transferring water to Mir and exchanging almost 4700 pounds of cargo experiments and supplies between the two spacecraft. Long-term US experiments that had been on board Mir were moved into Discovery's middeck lockers and Spacehab Single Module. When the hatches closed for undocking at 9:07 a.m. EDT on June 8 and the spacecraft separated at 12:01 p.m. EDT that day, the final Shuttle-Mir docking mission was concluded and Phase One of the International Space Station program came to an end.[32][11][33]

Phase Two - ISS

Mir's Legacy - The International Space Station as she orbits to date, Phase Two of the ISS program.

With the landing of Discovery on June 12, 1998, the Phase One program concluded. However, the techniques learned and equipment developed during the program would continue to assist in the development of space exploration with the beginning of Phase Two on July 12 2000. That day saw the launch of a Russian Proton rocket carrying the first module of the International Space Station, the Zarya Functional Cargo Block. This first module of the ISS module provided electrical power, storage, propulsion, and guidance to the ISS during its initial stage of assembly, and provides the functional backbone to the station.[34]

To date, the International Space Station consists of six pressurised modules, two solar arrays and a large truss structure, and is intended to continue both international cooperation in space and zero-gravity scientific research, particularly regarding long-duration spaceflight, the results of which will provide considerable information for long-duration expeditions to the Moon and flights to Mars. The ISS is already the largest spacecraft assembled in history, and upon its completion - marking the end of Phase Two and the start of Phase Three - will consist of five laboratories, be able to support six crew members in over 1000 cubic metres of pressurised volume, and will have a mass of 400,000 kilograms - almost twice the size of the combined Shuttle-Mir spacecraft.[35]

Following the intentional deorbiting of Mir on March 23 2001, the ISS became the only space station currently in orbit around Earth. Mir's legacy lives on in the station, bringing together five space agencies in the cause of exploration and allowing those space agencies to prepare for their next leap into space, to the Moon, Mars and beyond.[36]

Controversy

Safety & scientific return

Throughout its course, the program received much criticism over the safety of the ageing Mir, particularly following the fire aboard the station and collision with the Progress supply vessel in 1997.

Astronaut Jerry Linenger wearing a respirator mask following the 1997 fire aboard Mir.

The fire, caused by the malfunction of a backup solid-fuel oxygen generator (SFOG), burned for, according to various sources, between ninety seconds & fourteen minutes, and produced large amounts of toxic smoke that filled the station for around forty-five minutes, forcing the crew to don respirators. A similar occurrence had occurred on an earlier Mir expedition, although in that case the SFOG burned for only a few seconds. Of still further concern was the fact that some of the respirator masks initially worn by the astronauts were broken, and fire extinguishers fixed to the walls of the modules were found to be immovable. In addition, the fire occurred during a time when crews were switching over, and as such there were six men aboard the station rather than the usual three – with the fire blocking off access to one of the docked Soyuz lifeboats. If evacuation of the station had been necessary, only half of the crew would have been able to escape.[4][5]

The near-miss and collision incidents presented further safety issues. Both caused by failure of the same piece of equipment, the TORU manual docking system, the tests were called in order to gauge the performance of long-distance docking in order to enable the Russians to remove the expensive Kurs automatic docking system from the Progress ships. The press at the time seized upon this untested technology as still further demonstrations of Mir's unwieldiness.

The accidents also added to the increasingly vocal criticism of the dying station's reliability – originally designed to fly for five years, Mir eventually flew for three times that length of time, and during the time of the program was showing her age – constant computer crashes, loss of power, uncontrolled tumbles through space and leaking pipes were an ever-present concern for crews, as was the fact that various breakdowns of Mir's Elektron oxygen-generating system led them to become increasingly reliant on the SFOG systems that had caused the fire in 1997.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

The safety issues at various times caused NASA to reconsider the future of the program, and, although it was eventually decided to continue, the agency came under fire from various areas of the press regarding that decision.[37]

Attitudes

The attitudes of both the Russian space program and NASA towards Phase One was also of concern to the astronauts involved. Due to Russia's financial issues, it was considered by many at the TsUP that the mission hardware and continuation of Mir was of more importance than the lives of the cosmonauts aboard her, and as such the program was run in a very different way to the American style - cosmonauts found their days being planned for them down to the minute, actions (such as docking) which would be performed manually by shuttle pilots were all carried out automatically, and cosmonauts had their pay docked upon return to Earth if they made any errors during their flights. Americans had found, in the past, notably aboard Skylab, that this was not a productive way for work to be carried out, and had since made the plans more flexible. The Russians, however, would not budge, and many felt that significant work time was lost because of this.[4][38]

In addition, astronaut Jerry Linenger felt that, following the two accidents in 1997, the Russian authorities attempted a coverup of the accidents in an effort to downplay their significance, fearing that the Americans would back out of the partnership. A large part of this 'coverup' was the seeming impression that the American astronauts were not in fact 'partners' aboard the station, but were instead 'guests'. NASA staff did not find out for several hours about the fire and collision after they occurred, and found themselves kept out of decision-making processes. They eventually managed to get themselves involved when attributing the blame for the collision - Russian mission controllers had intended to place the accident entirely on the shoulders of Vasily Tsibliyev, and it was only after the application of significant pressure from NASA that this stance was changed.[5][4]

Neverthless, NASA itself was not without flaws regarding Phase One - at various times during the program, managers and personnel found themselves limited in terms of resources and manpower, particularly as Phase Two geared up, and had a hard time getting anywhere with the NASA administration. One particular area of contention was the Director of thes Flight Crew Operations Directorate, George Abbey, who assigned crews to missions. He was despised by many astronauts in NASA due to his methods of choosing crews for flights - many found themselves grounded merely for upsetting him in some way. Astronauts felt that this prevented many of the best astronauts from flying in the roles they would be best suited to, and that the program as a whole suffered because of him.[5][4][39]

Finances

Another area of significant controversy regarding the program was the financial state of Russia's space program – since the breakup of the Soviet Union a few years earlier, the Russian economy had been slowly collapsing, with the budget space exploration being reduced by around 80%. Before and after Phase One, a great deal of Russia's space finances came from flights of astronauts from Europe and other countries, with one Japanese TV station paying £6 million to have one of their reporters flown aboard Mir.[4] By the start of Phase One, the problem had become so bad that cosmonauts regularly found their missions extended to save money on launchers, the six-yearly flights of the Progress had been reduced to three, and there was a distinct possibility of Mir herself being sold, to the tune of around £350 million.[4]

Critics argued that the £200 million contract NASA had with Russia was the only thing keeping the Russian space program alive, and only the Space Shuttle was keeping Mir aloft. Astronauts training at Star City certainly got this impression, with NASA having to pay hefty fees for training manuals and equipment.[5] Problems came to a head when it was revealed by ABC's Nightline that there was a distinct possibility of embezzlement of American finances by the Russian authorities in order to build a suite of new cosmonaut houses in Moscow, or else that the building projects were being funded by the Russian Mafia. NASA administrator Goldin was invited onto the programme to defend the homes, and refused to comment, although NASA's office for external affairs was quoted as saying that "What Russia does with its own money is their business."[4][40]

Despite these comments, however, NASA was unable to shake off the critics who claimed that the program was not a scientific endeavour at all - merely a political tool to assist the bankrupt Russian space program, an opinion which continues to this day with critics of Phase Two, the International Space Station herself.

Missions

References

Public Domain This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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  8. ^ a b Sue McDonald (December 1998). "Mir Mission Chronicle" (PDF). NASA. Retrieved 2007-03-30. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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