Thursday, Aug 21, 2008
On its red-hot deathbed, the Mir space station helped us root for misery, a good story and fiery debris.
Apr 26, 2001 | There are many reasons to want a giant space station to fail ferociously, with a burning plunge, and even a dangerous one. We like fire and splashes, but there's more: We worship failure, and we adore falling.
In the weeks before Russia brought its precious Mir into a modestly controlled nose dive into the Pacific last month, people got ironic and giddy. The 143-ton relic was vaguely out of control. With a slew of onboard problems and even more media attention, it had people making indoor plans for the day of its fall.
"The orbit it has carries it over 85 percent of the world's population, over most of the major cities of the world except Moscow," John Logsdon of George Washington University told the Associated Press.
Japan -- the last country Mir would pass over before heading out to sea -- didn't like the sound of the station exploding into an estimated 1,500 fragments upon reentry, which were expected to weigh a total of 27.5 tons. In March, Japan's defense chief canceled a trip to Washington that had been scheduled for the week of Mir's crash.
Before the anxiety, there was just pride: Russia shot Mir into orbit 15 years ago; it outlasted all estimates, and was generally glorious. It looked inspiring and odd, like mating dragonflies or bad public art. It was home to a revolving crew of cosmonauts over the years, and the cosmonauts were a cross between heroes and soap stars back home. Most of all, it worked. Mir circled the Earth 86,325 times. Men and women lived lives up there, albeit cramped ones, and this was to have been a triumphant beginning.
Instead of triumphant sequels, the Soviet Union collapsed. The space plan went into the stack of other plans that weren't immediately kicked to the curb but weren't exactly nurtured, either. By the time everyone had finally adjusted, somewhat, to the new world order, Russia was slashing all projects that weren't paying the bills.
Mir's occupants came home and nobody took their place. Russia let the station float in space while it waited to see what funding would turn up. As recently as last spring, there was talk of making Mir something of a tourist destination for select millionaires. But this, like other schemes, fell apart. What had been the nation's great hope for the final frontier now had people listening for a death rattle.
By the time it was clear Mir would never be revived, it had so many problems that some weren't even sure how to kill it. Guiding it down into the Earth's atmosphere -- it was too big to leave in space, which apparently isn't as roomy as we thought -- required a level of maneuverability Mir apparently lacked. With dying batteries, a central computer prone to shutting down and a huge, unwieldy shape, the station had space officials nervous. And it was starting to attract attention to itself once again: People thought it might land on their head.
Relax, Russia said, though its space agency had taken out a $200 million insurance policy in case Mir did hit anything. It was true that the now-ancient equipment was temperamental, and that ground control would be able to issue commands only when the station was directly overhead -- assuming it responded at all. And it was true that this was the largest man-made object ever to be coaxed home unmanned, and that just bringing it into the atmosphere at the right angle was incredibly tricky, like skipping an uneven stone off a pond. And finally it was true that the guiding engine could die halfway into its burn, sending Mir into Europe, or perhaps anywhere. But Moscow also had 380,000 square miles in the South Pacific to work with. Besides, it had no choice. "We have a direct line with NORAD [the North American Aerospace Defense Command] and U.S. Space Command," said Bruce Baughman of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In the event that debris started heading for the United States, FEMA would issue a warning for citizens to take cover. They would have a little under an hour to respond, according to the Associated Press.
"The best thing to do is to keep alert, listen, and if it looks like it's going to hit somewhere, we'll get the warning out to everybody," Baughman said.
The drama was too much. In the months before the station's reentry, people got hooked. Web sites went up to bring us updates, news outlets began covering the story and then it just got campy. Taco Bell floated a 40-by-40-foot vinyl bull's-eye off the coast of Australia; if Mir hit, 281 million Americans would each win a taco. Mir guessing was now about chaos and fun, like a lottery but with a better payoff. Anyone's house, or car, or head, could be a winner.
Those not worried about being hit feared being missed. The average person -- particularly the average Mir nut -- didn't live between Chile and New Zealand, where the space station was supposed to splash down. In the last decadent days of the new economy (the boom itself a hair's breadth away from a Mir-ish fate), a Sausalito, Calif., P.R. firm called Herring Media Group chartered a jet to go watch the space station's reentry up close.
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