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Science Friday > Archives > 2001 > March > March 16, 2001:

Hour One: Space Station Mir Retrospective

If all goes according to plan, this is the last weekend that space station Mir will be in orbit about the Earth. Sometime next week, controllers from the Russian Space Agency are expected to give the aging outpost one last nudge with an attached cargo rocket that will send Mir plunging back to Earth. Most of the station is expected to burn up on re-entry, but sizable chunks may still survive -- only to crash down into a deserted patch of ocean in the South Pacific.

Space station Mir, as seen from the space shuttle. NASA / JSC image.

The station has seen its share of successes over its 15-year lifespan, as well as its share of embarrassments. Some observers saw the station as a symbol of Russian tenacity, engineering, and international cooperation. Others saw instead an orbiting joke, based on the many well-publicized mishaps, from fires to electrical outages, that plagued the station. In this hour of Science Friday, we'll take a look back at Mir, including a chat with Dr. Norm Thagard, the first American to live on board the station.

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Guests:
James Oberg
Space Analyst
Author, "Red Star in Orbit"
Houston, Texas

Bryan Burrough
Special Correspondent, Vanity Fair
Author, "Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis Aboard Mir"
New York, New York

Norman Thagard
Former NASA Astronaut
Cosmonaut/Researcher, Russian Mir 18 Mission
Professor and Director of College Relations
FAMU-FSU College of Engineering
Tallahassee, Florida  

Books/Articles Discussed:

"Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis Aboard Mir" by Bryan Burrough. Harperperrenial Library, 2000. "Red Star in Orbit" by James Oberg. (find more SciFri books here)

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Related Links:
OpenUniverse.com: Requiem for Mir
Office of Space Flight - Mir
Mir Space Station - Home Page
NASA Shuttle-Mir Web
NASA Shuttle-Mir Web: U.S. Cosmonaut Researchers
Where is Mir?
TLC -- Blast Off: True Stories From the Final Frontier - Norm Thagard
NY Times (free reg, required) 150 Miles Up, Mir Begins Final Journey
NY Times (free reg required) Space Station Mir
SciFri Archives: Sep 1997 conversation with shuttle astronauts en route to Mir

This segment produced by: Charles Bergquist