The flooding of the world. For fans of political fables about the root causes of the liquidation of the space station "Mir"

From the book Mysteries of Civilizations

Chapter 1. The Mystery of Mir Station

The fact that we still do not know much about the surrounding nature is also proved by the amazing story that happened to cosmonaut Alexander Serebrov and his comrades. A story that ended with the sinking of the Mir space station. This story is still a carefully concealed secret of Russian cosmonautics.

... Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Serebrov dozens of times observed the fall of celestial bodies directly in space from the window of the Mir orbital station. Behind him are four flights and ten spacewalks. But Serebrov could not even imagine that one flight would be fatal for him. Alexander remembers that expedition minute by minute... The cosmonauts of the Mir orbital station had just set foot on its board. The equipment left at the station was used by the crew of the previous shift. Including spacesuits. The flight engineer of the orbital station, Alexander Serebrov, was supposed to prepare the equipment for the spacewalk. When Serebrov opened one of the suits, a wave of green dust literally poured over him.

On Earth, dust settles, but in space, under conditions of weightlessness, it is elusive. Several layers of mold had formed inside the suit. All this the team had to clean up with improvised means. Mold and dust were collected and sent to the dust collector.

However, the story didn't end there. A few days later, the astronauts noticed that the water at the station had an unpleasant taste, and a week later a pungent smell appeared in the compartments.

Alexander Serebrov says:

“At the next session of communication with the Earth, we say: “Water with a smell, let us change the column.” We were not allowed. Then we began to pay attention to the fact that our condensate pumps stop every half an hour. The siren is buzzing, something stops there, and the air conditioner stops pumping.”

Then the astronauts dismantled the column and determined that the pump needed to be replaced. But this did not help, and soon Serebrov noticed that the entire column filter was clogged with poisonous yellow crumbs.

The granules of unknown origin were again shaken into the dust collector, they decided to sort it out on Earth, the crew was about to return home. But the flight was extended by two months. The astronauts had no choice but to fix the problems themselves. Then Serebrov decided to dismantle the column.

Alexander Serebrov continues his story:

“I opened the column, and there are also some pieces. Then I put a wire in there (even in space nothing can be done without delay) and began to pull out a worm one and a half meters long. That is, the surface was covered with a millimeter layer of some incomprehensible fabric, it was flexible, yellow, with dark brown spots, like a snake ... "

The astronauts experienced the strongest shock from what they saw. How could this creature end up in an airtight orbital plumbing system? The team reported the incident to Mission Control. The expedition was urgently prepared to return to Earth. But the astronauts had little time. One microbacterium in space mutated so that it managed to be reborn into a whole slug. Under the influence of cosmic radiation, viruses began to slowly destroy the Mir station. One after another, the most important devices failed.

Here is what an employee of the Mission Control Center Novikova told me:

“At the Mir, a switching communication device failed. And when it was lowered to Earth, and when the casing of this device was removed, there was a very strong, thick mold coating on the insulation of the wires inside. Then, also on the ISS, we fixed the malfunction of certain instruments. In particular, the fire detector and the smoke detector failed.

Mir is a manned research orbital complex that operated in near-Earth space from February 20, 1986 to March 23, 2001

The astronauts were no longer in control of the situation. A fire could break out at Mir at any moment. Without a fire detector and a smoke detector, this situation could lead to disaster.

Alexander Serebrov sent his dangerous find on a cargo spacecraft to Earth. The crew had a few more days to spend in space. Already at the station, Serebrov felt unwell. Constantly dizzy, nauseous, for several days the astronaut lay with a temperature.

The fact that the Mir orbital station was almost completely covered in various types of fungi is not a secret. When looking at a photo of the station's hatch, extensive mold damage can be seen with the naked eye. Under such conditions, Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Serebrov and his team spent 197 days.

“I somehow climbed onto the spherical bottom,” says Serebrov, “this is the aft part of the module. She was all covered with some kind of white coating. This is not just aluminum oxide or something else ... I then took swabs, lowered them to Earth, but they don’t inform us so as not to frighten ... ”

The Mir station, all overgrown with space mushrooms, was flooded in the Pacific Ocean in 2001. Scientists assured: the station was heat-treated through the atmosphere. In such an oven, not a single microbe will survive. But they recognized that the properties of the mold mutating in weightlessness are unknown until the end. The station was flooded, but what if space bacteria survived? What is happening now at a depth where the remains of Mir are buried is unknown. Is there a threat that an unknown virus will come to earth from the water depths?

“They did wrong with Mir,” Serebrov is sure. - They flooded it in a hurry, without taking samples either inside or outside. But this radiation even affects the structure of the metal, radiation accumulates there, and secondary radiation, it is sometimes stronger than the primary one.

It is still unknown what is happening in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, where the remains of the Mir space station lie. During the descent, the Mir melted in the upper atmosphere. But did the mutated mold die?

And not so long ago, experts monitoring the health of astronauts announced that mold had already been discovered on the new ISS. The reason for its occurrence is very simple: the astronauts piled wet towels on the panels. The fungi that people washed off themselves began to grow. As soon as the mold was discovered, the astronauts urgently carried out antibacterial treatment.

After the emergency at the Mir station, a whole program was created at the Institute of Biomedical Problems to study the behavior of microorganisms in space. It was called Biorisk. Special equipment was developed for the experiment. The material was spores of bacilli and microscopic fungi, the most resistant to external factors. They were placed on the metal structures from which the outer shell of the spacecraft was made. This sample was left in a Petri dish, which was hermetically sealed. There was a membrane filter on the lid. It allowed air to pass inside the cup, but kept the microorganisms inside.

Microorganisms spent 18 months in space. So for the first time it was proved that bacteria can not only survive in extreme conditions, but also, under the influence of the strongest radiation, transform into stronger organisms.

After the return of Alexander Serebrov to Earth, the symptoms of a strange disease began to intensify. Severe pain in the abdomen, nausea and constant weakness did not allow a normal life. For help, Alexander Serebrov turned to the Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, but the doctors could not make an accurate diagnosis.

Alexander Serebrov says:

“At the institute, they told me: “Well, you have a yeast bacterium in your intestines, but we have no analogues on Earth, it’s a mutant, so we don’t know how to treat it.”

Alexander Serebrov understands that, most likely, he will never recover. The astronaut can only hope that the microorganism does not show new symptoms.

“I am a mutant,” Serebrov laughs. They don't know what to treat me for. So I'm unique, a person with unique content."

However, not only the mystery of the Mir station is connected with the properties of microorganisms unknown to science

Technical problems:

Why was the Mir station sunk?

Flights into space have always been associated with great risk for the crew. But staying on a space station is also unsafe for astronauts. The Mir orbital station was launched into orbit in February 1986 and operated until 2001, when it was sunk in the Pacific Ocean. Over the 15 years of operation at the station, many incidents have occurred.

On February 23, 1997, an atmosphere regeneration oxygen bomb ignited at the station. At the station at that moment there were six people from the 22nd and 23rd expeditions: Valery Korzun, Alexander Kaleri, Vasily Tsibliyev, Alexander Lazutkin, Reinhold Ewald and Jerry Linenger. Two Soyuz TM ships were docked to the station, which made it possible to evacuate all the people, but one of the ships was cut off. The situation was worsened by the fact that the station was smoky. The entire crew put on gas masks. After the source of fire was eliminated due to smoke, the astronauts had to wear respirators for some time. The crew members themselves were able to put out the fire before it got out of control. The investigation showed that the fire was caused by a single defect in the oxygen cartridge.

Air conditioning leak

During the 23rd expedition in March 1997, the air conditioning system failed - first, the Elektron oxygen generation units failed in succession, and then the refrigerant began to leak - poisonous ethylene glycol. The temperature at the station rose to 50 °C at the maximum allowable 28 °C, and humidity increased. By the end of March, the source of the leak was found. On April 6, Progress-M34 was launched from the Earth, containing additional materials for the repair of the station, oxygen bombs for regeneration, and water supplies. By the end of April, a dozen cracks in the tubes of the station's air conditioning system were found and repaired. The station returned to normal operation. The Atlantis shuttle mission STS-84, which was under threat of cancellation due to technical problems at the station, was cleared. She delivered oxygen generation units to the station to replace the failed ones and water supplies.

Collision of "Progress - M34" with the module "Spectrum"

On June 25, 1997, during an experiment on manual docking in the BPS + TORU mode (ballistic precision rendezvous - teleoperator control mode) of Progress-M34, a loss of control of the space truck occurred. As a result, Progress crashed into the station, damaging the solar panels and leaving a hole in the Spektr module with an area of 2 cm2. The MCC urgently gave the command to seal the module, thus ensuring the life support of the station. The situation was complicated by the fact that cables ran through the hatch connecting the module to the station. The shutdown of the module resulted in a temporary loss of electricity generated by the station - with the de-energization of the module, the Spektra solar panels were turned off, which provided 40% of the electricity. It was only by August 1997 that the power supply to the Mir station was fully restored. The crew members of the 23rd expedition were awarded state awards: Lazutkin received the title of Hero of Russia, Tsibliyev - the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, III degree.

Loss of oxygen

On August 28, 1997, another trouble happened on Mir. In the evening, shortly before lights out, the Electron hydrolysis plant, which produces oxygen, spontaneously shut down. The astronauts tried several times to turn it on, but the Electron immediately turned off again. From the Earth it was recommended to postpone the repair of the installation until the morning and use a solid-fuel oxygen generator - a checker that produces oxygen when burned. However, the flare did not catch fire.

Remembering that in February, due to exactly the same checkers (produced by the Moscow NPO Nauka), a serious fire broke out at the station, the MCC ordered that checkers no longer be used and still try to repair Electron. Fortunately, the malfunction was fixed in just a few minutes (it turned out that some kind of contact had broken), and already at half past ten, the normal supply of oxygen to the station was restored.

Loss of orientation

In September 1997, as a result of a computer error, Mir lost its orientation to the Sun. For astronomical observations of the Sun, Moon, planets and stars, it is necessary to orient the telescopes or the entire station accordingly. The solar collectors of the power supply system must be constantly directed towards the Sun. And therefore, having lost the right direction, the station was left without the main source of energy. Also, a certain orientation is necessary for various antenna devices, which means that control was also lost, since the crew could not accurately find out the location of the station. It took 24 hours before control of the station was restored.

However, it was this incident that was the last straw - since mid-1999, due to difficulties in financing the flight program of the Mir station, in order to save money, the operating mode of the complex was changed by including relatively long unmanned sections in the program. And in 2001, it was decided to flood the orbital station in the Pacific Ocean.

This issue of Cosmonovosti is dedicated to a sad event in the life of our cosmonautics - the flooding of the Mir station. I propose to return to the past, get acquainted with the opinions of people involved in astronautics and conduct our own investigation - what was the reason - a betrayal of our national interests or the objective state of the station?

Let's start with dates.

The base unit of the Mir station was launched in 1986. The last module, Priroda, was docked to the station in 1996. In 2000, the last expedition, 28, worked at the station, which mothballed the station, but did not prepare it for flooding . The decision to deorbit was made in 2001.

For reference: the first basic unit of the ISS (Zarya, NPC named after Khrunichev) was launched in 1998. Knowing that it takes about a year (at least) to manufacture the module, can we conclude that the decision to participate in the ISS program of the station adopted no later than 1996? Without a doubt, yes.

The old age of the station was cited as one of the reasons for the termination of Mir's activities. Indeed, by the time of the last expedition, the base unit (which cannot be replaced - it's almost the same as building a new station) has worked for 14 years - this is several times longer than the expected life. But the base unit of the ISS has already been flying for 19 years, and no one plans to deorbit the ISS in the coming months.

Another cited reason: “At the Mir station, it happened many breakdowns, some almost led to a disaster and the death of the crew. The station was old, everything was falling apart.

Here is what the cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Georgy Mikhailovich Grechko (May 25, 1931 - April 8, 2017) said about this in 2001: “References to a large number of emergency situations are absurd. In complex technical systems, failures always happen. It is important that these failures do not lead to disaster. And it's not the age of the station, but the nature of the accidents. If an astronaut lost his toothbrush or the device brought on board failed, then why blame the station itself? It's not her fault. You need to monitor not the number of emergency situations, but their pace. It is important that failures in the operation of devices proceed more or less evenly - with a slight increase. If the rate of accidents increases sharply: in one month - three, in another - ten, in the third - fifty, and so on, then it would be logical to liquidate Mir. But that didn't happen. The breakdowns were eliminated, and everything worked again. ”

Let me remind you of the list of serious emergency situations on Mir:

In January 1994, the Soyuz TM-17 spacecraft, departing from the station, collided with the Kristall module.

In 1997, the station almost suffered a catastrophe several times. In January, a fire broke out on board - the astronauts were forced to wear breathing masks. The smoke even spread to the board of the Soyuz spacecraft. The fire was extinguished a few seconds before the decision to evacuate was made. And in June, the Progress unmanned cargo ship veered off course and crashed into the Spektr module. The station has lost its tightness. The team managed to block the Spektr (close the hatch leading into it) before the pressure on the station dropped to critically low. In July, the Mir was almost left without power - one of the crew members accidentally disconnected the on-board computer cable, and the station went into an uncontrolled drift. In August, oxygen generators failed - the crew had to use emergency air supplies.

Let's give the floor to Georgy Mikhailovich: “Yes, once the radio system went out, and we lost contact with the station for a day. For some unknown reason, the batteries were discharged, and the transmitting equipment turned off. The next day, the station turned towards the Sun, the batteries were charged. We gave a signal from the Earth to turn on the equipment, and it worked. There was also a failure in the orientation system, on-board computers, cases of passing unauthorized signals to turn off certain units were recorded. At the MCC they said: “Mir” seemed to resist flooding ... But then all the breakdowns were quickly eliminated. For a station that has been flying for so many years, this is a natural thing. If it had remained unmanned for some time, there would have been other equipment failures. But Mir would never have broken in half, exploded and fallen on our heads. He was in quite good condition... Every weak system on the station was duplicated and trotted. One set fails - turn on the second. And no problem. Where there is a strong tension, there is a thickening. Everything was provided to the smallest detail».

Let's give the floor to Yuri Koptev, ex-head of Rosaviakosmos:

"The main argument that guided all the experts who spoke in favor of the flooding of the Mir orbital complex is safety. We approached such a mode of operation of the station when any of the Mir systems, which were originally designed for five years of operation, but which have worked for fifteen, has the right to refuse, so we need to stop in time," Koptev emphasized (interview dated March 23, 2011)

And in fact, the basic unit of Mir was designed for a 5-year stay in space. And flew off in the end 15 years. Money was required to troubleshoot, repair, to maintain the station in a working, safe condition for astronauts. Let's remember how funding was allocated for astronautics in those years.

When Gorbachev announced a new course for the development of the state, when it was proposed to all state defense enterprises to first engage in "conversion" - well, for example, research institutes to look for contracts for the development of small aircraft for private owners, and the defense plant to switch to the production of pans with non-stick coating - it became clear that this is the beginning of the end. Contracts, of course, were found, but not to the extent required to maintain enterprises in working condition. I think everyone remembers this horror.

My husband, for example, being a co-owner of a small company (they produced “only” 20% of woodworking machines in the country), tried to place orders for the production and development of machine tools at defense enterprises in order to somehow support them. And some of the machines were made by the NPC them. Khrunichev. Who recently made the only spacecraft in the world! That was such a rotten time. And when the USSR collapsed, and the money ceased to be allocated from the state, in November 1991 the Russian government leased Mir to the Energia Corporation. Spin as you wish!

RSC Energia also placed advertisements at the station and at the MCC, and negotiated about "space tourists". Here is what G. Grechko recalled about this: “Then we decided to make money on commercial flights and space tourism. Remember the British millionaire, the owner of the waste processing company Peter Llewellyn, the sixty-year-old American billionaire Denis Tito... The only lucky person was the Japanese TV journalist Toyohiro Akiyama. Twenty-five million dollars for a week's stay in orbit was paid by his television company. Thus, colleagues wanted to congratulate Toyohiro on his fortieth birthday. Not bad, they say, went to the "Mir" and advertising. The astronauts advertised Swiss watches, food processors, Israeli company milk, and Coca-Cola with Pepsi. Here's another two million dollars for you."

Toyohiro Akiyama

In 1993, an agreement was reached with the Americans. They planned the construction of a new orbital station, but they themselves could not cope - their only experience with Skylab was sad - the station fell three years after launch and was hardly visited by astronauts. They desperately needed our experience, our technology and our Mir to train their astronauts. As a result, over 4.5 years of astronaut visits to Mir, the United States transferred more than $500 million, which provided 50% of the proceeds to finance the station. Energia built the Zvezda module, and the NPTs im. Khrunichev - the basic module "Zarya" for the future ISS.

And again, an excerpt from an interview with G Grechko:

- Georgy Mikhailovich, over the fifteen years of the station's existence, one hundred and four Russian cosmonauts and foreign astronauts have visited it. Of these, forty-four Americans ...

- They had nothing to fly on long expeditions, and short ones were ineffective. That is why we received them on board our station - we made them real astronauts who can work in orbit for a long time. They didn’t pay that much for it, and the data—sometimes priceless—sometimes we gave it to them for free.”

Shuttle docked at Mir

That is, it was still possible to fly to the Mir when the Americans needed it?“On January 29, 1998, in Washington (!!!), a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Rosaviakosmos and NASA on cooperation within the framework of the International Space Station. And if earlier Mir helped build the ISS, since 1998 it has become a hindrance, as it diverted not only human and financial resources to support its existence, but also our missiles, the number of which could not be sharply increased. At the same time, funding also stopped " World" at the expense of the US budget. The station, as mentioned above, increasingly began to fail, as a result, the council of chief designers decided to flood it in 1999 ”- an excerpt from Pavel Danilin’s article “Whose Mir did we drown?” (Vzglyad newspaper, March 23, 2007)

Why wasn't the station flooded at the same time? In the article cited above, Pavel Danilin suggests that the decision to continue maintaining Mir in the conservation regime was our only leverage to put pressure on the insolent United States, with whose support they bombed Yugoslavia (remember the turn of Primakov's plane in protest?). Apparently, they wanted to remove us from participation in the ISS altogether. And we have demonstrated that we will not provide launch vehicles - you will fly to the ISS on whatever you want.

Svetlana Savitskaya

Two years have passed. The State Duma even allocated money for the operation of the Mir, but they did not reach their intended purpose - the government of M. Kasyanov could not in any way "prescribe the mechanism" for the receipt of this money by RSC Energia. Here is what the cosmonaut, twice Hero of the Soviet Union S. Savitskaya says about this: “In 2000 and 2001, the State Duma decided to finance the Mir station. But the allocated money went to recycling.”

How the whole world saved Mir, several "reports from the front."

A rally against the sinking of the Russian station "Mir" took place today in front of the building of "Rosaviakosmos".

MOSCOW, February 20, 2001 / Corr. ITAR-TASS Alexander Kovalev/. A rally against the sinking of the Russian orbital station "Mir" took place today, on the day of the 15th anniversary of the orbital complex, near the building of the main space department of the Russian Federation - the Russian Aviation and Space Agency.

Despite the frosty weather, about 200 people came to protest the decision taken by the leadership of Rosaviakosmos to flood the Mir. In addition to representatives of the Communist Party and sympathetic residents of the capital, MAI students took part in the rally.

Unfortunately, in the near future, due to lack of money, Russia will not be able to launch its own station, and the ISS actually belongs to the United States. Therefore, "Mir" must be preserved, said many participants in the rally.

NASA and the European Space Agency will assist Russian specialists in the operation to sink the Mir space station.

The US National Aeronautics and Space Research Agency /NASA/ and the European Space Agency /ESA/ will assist Russian specialists in tracking the trajectory of the Mir space station's descent from orbit in an area where there are no domestic radio visibility facilities. The head of Rosaviakosmos, Yury Koptev, told a RIA Novosti correspondent about this on Tuesday.

At the same time, he noted that the program to flood the Russian Mir station was entirely developed by domestic industry and scientific organizations, in particular, the Moscow Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Koptev said that along with the resources of Rosaviakosmos, the space tracking stations of the Russian Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation will actively participate in the descent of the station from orbit.

The State Duma asks the President of the Russian Federation to suspend the implementation of the government's decision on the flooding of the orbital space station "Mir"

MOSCOW, February 21, 2001 / Corr. ITAR-TASS Diana Rudakova/. The State Duma today turned to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request to suspend the implementation of the Russian government's decree on the flooding of the Mir orbital space station. This is stated in the resolution "On the continuation of the operation of the Mir orbital space station" adopted at the meeting of the chamber.

In addition, the document instructs State Duma Chairman Gennady Seleznev to inform the head of state about the position of the chamber. Speaking at the meeting, the majority of deputies also insisted on the need to create a joint commission that would "consider and adopt an appropriate conclusion on the future fate of the Mir station."

On the other hand, the head of Rosaviakosmos, Yuri Koptev, has a different opinion. , further flight of the orbital complex may pose a certain danger. We must not allow this to happen."

According to him, "the situation with Mir cannot be politicized. Everything has its logical end. The orbital complex has exhausted its resource. In order for the end not to be tragic, the station must be flooded within the agreed time frame so as not to endanger people," Koptev said.

Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences criticizes the decision to flood the Mir station

Moscow. February 26, 2001 (Interfax) - Gennady Osipov, Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the Institute for Socio-Political Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has severely criticized the plans to sink the Mir orbital complex.

In his opinion, the resources of the Mir space station have not been fully used, so the decision to sink it in the Pacific Ocean is "treacherous."

"This majestic achievement of our science and space technology is ten years ahead of the most modern American developments. Therefore, sinking the Mir station in front of the whole world is a crime," G. Osipov said in an interview with Interfax on Monday.

The head of Rosaviakosmos will meet on Wednesday with cosmonauts opposed to the Mir station flooding

MOSCOW, February 26, 2001 / Corr. ITAR-TASS Alexander Kovalev/. The head of Rosaviakosmos, Yuri Koptev, will meet on February 28 with the opponents of the sinking of the Mir station - cosmonauts Vitaly Sevastyanov, Anatoly Artsebarsky and Svetlana Savitskaya. The meeting will take place at the Russian Mission Control Center immediately after the broadcast of the docking of the Progress transport spacecraft with the International Space Station /ISS/. About this corr. ITAR-TASS was informed today in Rosaviakosmos.

On the eve of the flooding of the orbital complex, scheduled for mid-March, the upcoming conversation with the astronauts promises to be heated. The main arguments of those who support the continuation of Mir's flight are that the station has not yet exhausted its resource, belongs only to Russia, and therefore contributes to maintaining parity with the United States in the space field. For their part, the leaders of the leading aerospace enterprises are in favor of sinking the Mir, since Russia does not have enough funds to continue its flight, as well as to simultaneously participate in the ISS construction program and continue the flight of the Russian station.

Station flooding.

And yet the Mir was flooded.

"A unique operation to flood the Mir station was carried out on March 23, 2001 with the help of the Progress M1-5 cargo ship docked to the station with an increased fuel supply," said the official representative of the MCC Valery Lyndin.

"The first impulse to decelerate the station was issued at 3.32 Moscow time, the second - at 5.00 Moscow time, the third - at 8.08 Moscow time. The station entered the dense layers of the Earth's atmosphere at 8.44 Moscow time, where it began to burn and break into pieces. Unburned fragments of the station splashed down in a non-navigable area Pacific Ocean by about 9.00 Moscow time," Lyndin said.

Many employees of the Mission Control Center did not hide their tears during the flooding of the Mir station. " Everyone was in a mood, as if from the loss of something very expensive., - recalls the correspondent of RIA Novosti, who in 2001 transmitted from the MCC all the details of this unique operation, which went exactly according to the planned scenario. Fragments of a 140-ton space structure splashed down in the calculated area without harming anyone.

Here is what test cosmonaut Andrey Borisenko, who led the flooding of the Mir station, told the Vzglyad newspaper: “I had two feelings. On the one hand, as a professional, it was clear to me that this operation was necessary. If we hadn't flooded it, it would only have been worse - we would have received an uncontrolled fall of an uncontrolled object with unpredictable consequences. And humanly, of course, it was insanely sorry. When we gave the final braking impulse, and a huge number of people were present in the control room, everyone fell silent. The atmosphere was like seeing off a close friend on his last journey... Many of my colleagues had tears in their eyes.”

I found a short film on the Internet - only 5 and a half minutes. I would call him "Requiem for Peace". I suggest you watch it.

So what conclusion did we, dear readers, come to?

I decided for myself that if the station was financed stably and in full, it could fly for several more years, and we would smoothly launch our Zarya and Zvezda modules and, perhaps, the planned Mir-2 flew instead of the ISS ". But there was a catastrophic destruction of the state, and in these difficult conditions we did everything we could. "Mir" was doomed, like the whole country, but we survived. And now the ISS cannot function without us - and there was a moment when we were given a quota for the flight program. We have not only survived, we are developing. Thank you, Mir, for our Russian space!

And now - Space News Issue #3!

HISTORY OF SPACE EXPLORATION. 60 YEARS OF LAIKA'S FLIGHT

03.11.2017

60 years ago, on November 3, 1957, the second artificial Earth satellite was launched. On board the satellite was the dog Laika, which became the first living creature to be put into Earth's orbit.

The “cosmonaut candidate” was found literally twelve days before the rocket was launched. At the last moment, the choice of scientists fell on the dog, and not on other mammals, and the dog was taken from a pet shelter. They decided not to take thoroughbred dogs, as they are less adapted to difficult conditions.

Preparations began almost immediately after the start of the space age - the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite. The idea with the flight of an animal in a special spacecraft became the consolidation of the success of the Soviet Union in general and in the space industry in particular.

The device was designed literally "on the go", immediately bringing ideas to life. Laika also received special training. Unfortunately, everyone understood: it would be a one-way flight. During takeoff, enormous overloads fell upon the dog. She was pressed into the container, but she was able to bear the load. Laika died from overheating after four orbits around the Earth, but her flight proved that a living being can survive launch into orbit and weightlessness. This allowed scientists and designers to start preparing for the space flight of a ship with a man on board.

Laika became a hero who died in the name of science. Photos of the heroic animal today are in every space museum and in a huge number of books about space, various products of everyday use were named after her, postcards and stamps were also issued in her honor. On April 11, 2008, in Moscow, on Petrovsky-Razumovskaya Alley, on the territory of the Institute of Military Medicine, where a space experiment was being prepared, a monument to Laika was erected. The two-meter monument is a space rocket, turning into a palm, on which Laika proudly stands. Laika has forever remained in the history of space exploration.

ROSCOSMOS AND PRC. SIGNING THE PROGRAM OF COOPERATION IN SPACE

Today, November 1, 2017, at the 22nd meeting of the Heads of Government of Russia and China, the State Corporation "ROSCOSMOS" and the Chinese National Space Administration (CNCA) approved a program for the development of cooperation in the field of space activities. The program, signed by Igor Komarov, Director General of ROSCOSMOS, and Tang DENGZIE, Head of CNC, provides for deepening cooperation in a number of areas, including the study of the Moon and deep space.

The program of cooperation between Russia and China in the field of space consists of six sections: the study of the Moon and deep space; joint work on the creation and use of spacecraft; development and use of electronic component base and materials for the creation of space technology; cooperation in the field of Earth remote sensing (ERS) data; and space debris monitoring.

The goal of cooperation in the field of navigation is the rational use of the capabilities of the Russian global navigation satellite system GLONASS and the Chinese national navigation system Beidou. At the moment, active work is underway to ensure the mutual placement of GLONASS and Beidou monitoring stations, and a joint Russian-Chinese statement on the compatibility and complementarity of these systems and a joint statement on cooperation in the application of navigation technologies using GLONASS and Beidou systems in peaceful purposes.

ROSCOSMOS. #SPUTNIK60 - EXHIBITION IN BERLIN

ROSCOSMOS continues to open exhibitions in European countries dedicated to the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the space age, the launch of the first artificial satellite of the Earth, as part of measures to promote Russia's space activities. On October 26, 2017 in Berlin (Germany) in the Russian House of Science and Culture the next exhibition #SPUTNIK60 began to work.

In the next issue of Cosmonovosti, I will try to give a comparative analysis of the American Space Shuttle program and our domestic Energia-Buran program.

Materials used in the article:

https://ria.ru/science/20110323/356933210.html

Although humanity has abandoned flights to the moon, nevertheless, it has learned to build real "space houses", as evidenced by the well-known Mir station project. Today I want to tell you some interesting facts about this space station, which has been operating for 15 years instead of the planned three years.

96 people visited the station. There were 70 spacewalks with a total duration of 330 hours. The station was called the great achievement of the Russians. We won...if we hadn't lost.

The first 20-ton base module of the Mir station was launched into orbit in February 1986. Mir was supposed to become the embodiment of the eternal dream of science fiction writers about a space village. Initially, the station was built in such a way that it was possible to constantly add new and new modules to it. The launch of Mir was timed to coincide with the XXVII Congress of the CPSU.

In the spring of 1987, the Kvant-1 module was launched into orbit. It has become a kind of space station for Mir. Docking with Kvant was one of the first emergency situations for Mir. In order to securely attach Kvant to the complex, the cosmonauts had to make an unplanned spacewalk.

In June, the Kristall module was delivered into orbit. An additional docking station was installed on it, which, according to the designers, should serve as a gateway for receiving the Buran spacecraft.

This year the station was visited by the first journalist - Japanese Toyohiro Akiyama. His live reports were broadcast on Japanese TV. In the first minutes of Toyohiro's stay in orbit, it turned out that he was suffering from "space sickness" - a kind of sea sickness. So his flight was not particularly productive. In March of the same year, Mir experienced another shock. Only miraculously managed to avoid a collision with the "space truck" "Progress". The distance between the devices at some point was only a few meters - and this is at a cosmic speed of eight kilometers per second.

In December, a huge "star sail" was deployed on the Progress automatic ship. Thus began the experiment "Znamya-2". Russian scientists hoped that the rays of the sun reflected from this sail would be able to illuminate large areas of the earth. However, the eight panels that made up the "sail" did not fully open. Because of this, the area was illuminated much weaker than scientists expected.

In January, the Soyuz TM-17 spacecraft leaving the station collided with the Kristall module. Later it turned out that the cause of the accident was an overload: the cosmonauts returning to earth took too many souvenirs from the station with them, and the Soyuz lost control

Year 1995. In February, the American reusable spacecraft Discovery flew to the Mir station. On board the "shuttle" was a new docking port to receive NASA spacecraft. In May, the Mir docked with the Spektr module with equipment for Earth exploration from space. During its short history, Spectrum has experienced several emergency situations and one fatal catastrophe.

Year 1996. With the inclusion of the "Nature" module into the complex, the installation of the station was completed. It took ten years - three times longer than the estimated time of Mir's operation in orbit.

It became the most difficult year for the entire Mir complex. In 1997, the station almost suffered a catastrophe several times. In January, a fire broke out on board - the cosmonauts were forced to wear breathing masks. The smoke even spread on board the Soyuz spacecraft. The fire was extinguished a few seconds before the decision to evacuate was made. And in June, the Progress unmanned cargo ship veered off course and crashed into the Spektr module. The station has lost its tightness. The team managed to block the Spektr (close the hatch leading into it) before the pressure on the station dropped to critically low. In July, Mir was almost left without power - one of the crew members accidentally disconnected the on-board computer cable, and the station went into uncontrolled drift. In August, the oxygen generators failed - the crew had to use emergency air supplies. the aging station should be transferred to unmanned mode.

In Russia, many did not even want to think about abandoning the operation of Mir. The search for foreign investors began. However, foreign countries were in no hurry to help Mir. In August, the cosmonauts of the 27th expedition transferred the Mir station to unmanned mode. The reason is the lack of government funding.

All eyes were turned this year on the American entrepreneur Walt Andersson. He announced his readiness to invest $20 million in the creation of MirCorp, a company that intended to engage in the commercial operation of the station. famous Mir. The sponsor was found really quickly. A certain wealthy Welshman, Peter Llewellyn, said that he was ready not only to pay for his trip to the Mir and back, but also to allocate an amount sufficient to ensure the operation of the complex in manned mode for a year. That is at least $200 million. The euphoria from the rapid success was so great that the leaders of the Russian space industry did not pay attention to skeptical remarks in the Western press, where Llewellyn was called an adventurer. The press was right. The "tourist" arrived at the Cosmonaut Training Center and began training, although not a penny was credited to the agency's account. When Llewellyn was reminded of his obligations, he took offense and left. The adventure ended ingloriously. What happened next is well known. Mir was transferred to unmanned mode, the Mir Rescue Fund was created, which collected a small amount of donations. Although the proposals for its use were very different. There was such a thing - to establish a space sex industry. Some sources indicate that in zero gravity, males function fantastically smoothly. But it did not work out to make the Mir station commercial - the MirCorp project failed miserably due to the lack of customers. It was also not possible to collect money from ordinary Russians - mostly meager transfers from pensioners were transferred to a specially opened account. The Government of the Russian Federation has made an official decision to complete the project. The authorities announced that Mir would be scuttled in the Pacific Ocean in March 2001.

Year 2001. On March 23, the station was deorbited. At 05:23 Moscow time, Mir's engines were ordered to slow down. At around 6 am GMT, Mir entered the atmosphere several thousand kilometers east of Australia. Most of the 140-ton structure burned up on re-entry. Only fragments of the station reached the ground. Some were comparable in size to a subcompact car. The wreckage of Mir fell into the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and Chile. About 1,500 pieces of debris splashed down in an area of several thousand square kilometers - in a kind of cemetery of Russian spacecraft. Since 1978, 85 orbital structures have ended their existence in this region, including several space stations. Witnesses of the fall of red-hot debris into the ocean waters were the passengers of two aircraft. Tickets for these unique flights cost up to 10 thousand dollars. Among the spectators were several Russian and American cosmonauts who had previously been on Mir

Nowadays, many agree that automata controlled from the Earth are much better than a “live” person in coping with the functions of a space laboratory assistant, signalman, and even a spy. In this sense, the end of the work of the Mir station was a landmark event, designed to mark the end of the next stage of manned orbital cosmonautics.

15 expeditions worked on Mir. 14 - with international crews from the USA, Syria, Bulgaria, Afghanistan, France, Japan, Great Britain, Austria and Germany. During the operation of Mir, an absolute world record was set for the duration of a person's stay in space flight conditions (Valery Polyakov - 438 days). Among women, the world record for the duration of a space flight was set by American Shannon Lucid (188 days).

The Mir orbital station, which became one of the most expensive projects in the history of Soviet cosmonautics, not only worked longer than planned, but even "survived" the Soviet Union. The idea of creating the station arose in 1974. "Mir" was supposed to be a continuation of the Salyut-7 station. It was assumed that new scientific modules performing independent functions would be docked to the base unit. Mir was launched in 1986. Thus, the astronauts got the opportunity not only to work in space, but also to live. The new base took off without a pilot, and the first astronauts arrived only a month later.

“When a person spends six months or even a year on board the station, it naturally becomes his home. Somewhere he needs to live, work, rest. Everyone was in such a hurry to the next congress that they launched it almost empty. That is, the life support system at the station existed: it was possible to breathe, sleep, eat, drink there. But there was practically no equipment for experiments on it, and some station systems were missing.

We received cargo ships, removed equipment, installed it at the station. This work resembled the work of a locksmith, fitter, electrician and even a plumber. We always had screwdrivers in our pockets, a hammer in our belt, pliers - everything that was at hand, ”says the hero of the Soviet Union, cosmonaut Alexander Laveikin.

“I remember the Mir station, our old woman, it was a magnificent Soviet station, which was created by the geniuses of our people, neither the Americans nor other powers had anything like it in the world,” recalls People's Hero of Kazakhstan, Hero of the Russian Federation, cosmonaut Talgat Musabayev.

The construction of the "Mir" took more than four billion dollars. For an era of queues and empty counters, this was a gigantic sum. At the end of the eighties, there were even heated discussions in the press: is it worth spending so much money on space when people are starving on earth?

“I had no doubt that I would fly to her. And of course I waited. I accepted this launch with great joy, but the cosmonauts on the ground at that time knew that the station had been launched rather damp. Everything that was done by some dates was not always brought to an end, ”says Hero of the Soviet Union, pilot-cosmonaut Alexander Volkov.

The Mir station marked the beginning of long-term expeditions as part of an international crew, that is, in fact, laid the foundation for all future international programs. And the foreigners who came to work at the station had to speak strictly in the international language - Russian. Syrian Mohammed Ahmed Faris became the first foreign cosmonaut on Mir.

“The space industry has brought all the nations of the world closer together. I think she is an example of how you can live together without swearing and without billing. It would also be possible to live on earth, but politics is a harsh thing,” says the People's Hero of Kazakhstan, Hero of the Soviet Union, cosmonaut Toktar Aubakirov.

The attitude towards foreigners was friendly, but wary: Soviet and post-Soviet cosmonauts were military personnel and kept state secrets.

“Franz Viebeck was the first foreigner I met. The fact is that the profession of a test pilot generally excluded meetings with foreigners, ”recalls Aubakirov.

But foreigners who managed to live in the Soviet Union for some time and work with Soviet cosmonauts changed their opinion about the country very radically.

“Those astronauts who had a bad opinion about the Soviet Union changed it after living for several months in Star City. They understood that the ideology and propaganda against the Soviet Union that they heard in their homeland was completely untrue,” says Alexander Volkov.

HOW THE COSMONAUUTS LIVED ON MIR STATION

For the first time, astronauts got the opportunity not only to work in space, but also to fully relax. Now they could watch movies, go to the gym, play musical instruments, communicate with their families more often, and even go to the sauna.

“Inside there was a rectangular perimeter with a central console and a food supply console. In addition, there was a remote support for scientific work and a place where you can do physical education. In general, everything was provided there. Once a week you could go to the sauna, they even delivered oak and birch brooms from the Earth. We soared for real,” recalls Toktar Aubakirov.

The station looked like an apartment building: a central module plus a few more modules docked to it, where experiments were carried out. It was at the Mir station that the cosmonauts set the first records: the longest stay in outer space and the longest stay at the base. For example, Valery Polyakov lived on Mir for more than a year without a break.

“I am also often asked how I managed to live on the orbital station for so long. I think we are so prepared. We have strong nerves and we forgive each other various little things. Here at the Mir station with Sergey Krikalev we spent almost 11 months. I flew with him twice, we have a good relationship, and I even became the godfather of his daughter. But sometimes I wanted to turn away and scatter in different directions, ”Alexander Volkov shares his memories.

Each astronaut had his own individual cabin. In those days, this was an unprecedented luxury. Sleeping bags were attached to the wall, because in space it doesn't matter whether you sleep standing up or lying down.

“There were unique devices for life, for example, a hair clipper. People live there for six months, for a year, and the hair grows, and you need to cut it, and in zero gravity it is life-threatening, because the hair can get into the respiratory tract. And scientists built a special machine that immediately collected hair with a vacuum cleaner, ”Talgat Musabayev shares his memories.

And, of course, Mir was equipped with its own space dining room. And there was even a special refrigerator. Almost any food could be brought aboard the station. True, the French cosmonaut was not allowed to take blue cheese: they were afraid to disturb the biological environment.

Communication sessions with the family lasted only fifteen minutes. And the cosmonauts could hardly carve out this time, they spent it on experiments. During the next flight, Alexander Volkov with the Frenchman Jean-Loup Chretien were supposed to go into outer space and deploy an openwork structure. But the springs didn't open. Then Volkov kicked her for half an hour, risking cutting the suit and dying on the spot. But he rescued his French colleague.

“At the time, President François Mitterrand was rewarding us at the Élysée Palace in France. He personally tied this beautiful five-pointed order on a red ribbon around my neck for me. And here, for my flight, I was awarded the Order of the October Revolution. And for this flight, I received a gift from the government, with which I was able to buy Czech cuisine for myself,” said Alexander Volkov.

WHY WAS "MIR" FLOODED IN THE OCEAN?

With the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, funding for space projects was greatly reduced. To continue equipping the station, I had to look for money from other sources. One of them is space tourism. The richest people paid 30 million dollars for the opportunity to visit Mir.

“Already during the operation of the Mir station, in order to maintain it, tourists had to be taken there. In order to build a ship for the next flight to the station, a lot of money was needed, but there was none. And then they began to take tourists, about as much as the launch of the next Soyuz cost, Volkov says.

“You know that a tourist had to pay $30 million for his flight. When he flew to the station, our cosmonauts told him: "Oh, I'm sorry, please, we forgot to tell you that this is only one way." I'm kidding, of course. But these funds helped our astronautics a lot. Then we had a financial failure not only in space,” says Laveikin.

Initially, it was believed that the orbital station should work for five years, as a result, it worked for fifteen. Every year, Mir required more and more financial investments, breakdowns became permanent. And by the beginning of the 21st century, the number of breakdowns became critical. In 2001, it was decided to flood the Mir orbital station in the Pacific Ocean. Experts, in turn, assured that she could work for another two years.

“In my third flight to the Mir station, this is 1991-1992, we already spent about 70% of the time on repairs. It constantly had to be maintained, the units failed, ”recalls Volkov.

“The Mir station worked out a triple term, and it could well have worked out a fourth one, nothing would have happened to it. All the cosmonauts who flew to the station spoke about this, without exception. And all, without exception, then signed a letter addressed to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, in which they asked that the station not be drowned. But it was decided to flood the station. In its place, Segment arose - the international space station. It was so painful and insulting when we saw this station being lowered from orbit. We just saw with the naked eye from the Earth how it went into the ocean,” says Toktar Aubakirov.

“When our beauty burned, everyone who visited it, everyone who created it, wept with burning tears. Everything was burned, everything that was on it. But one item remained - this is just a guitar, which they managed to withdraw from the station on the Shuttle, ”recalls cosmonaut Alexander Laveikin.

Today, some experts believe that political motives were the main reason for the sinking of Mir. At that time, work was underway on the ISS, the main integrator of which was the United States, which organized force pressure, noted Deputy General Designer of RSC Energia im. S.P. Queen Yuri Grigoriev.

The orbital station "Mir" once flew incredibly high - 350 kilometers above the Earth. And then it fell to the very bottom - the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The astronauts did not remain homeless: now they have a new modern home - the ISS.

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