March 23, 2001 in pacific ocean The Russian orbital station Mir was sunk. The official reasons for the destruction of the station were its extreme deterioration, outdated equipment and lack of funds for the maintenance of the complex.
The Soviet manned orbital complex of the third generation "Mir" was a huge and complex multi-purpose structure. It was the first modular-type orbital station in history - the base unit with six docking nodes formed the basis.
The base unit was launched into Earth orbit on February 20, 1986. Then, over the course of 10 years, six more modules were docked to it. The very first crew on the station were astronauts. Leonid Kizim And Vladimir Solovyov who arrived aboard the Mir on March 15, 1986.
In total, during the operation of the station, 139 people visited it, including 62 foreign citizens from 12 countries of the world. The Mir complex opened the way for the construction of the International Space Station - much of what was used in the creation of the ISS was first tested on the Mir.
Initially designed for a 5-year service life, the station was in space for 15 years and until 2001 was the only "space house" that allowed the crews to stay and work in orbit for a long time, which gave a truly invaluable experience of settling in near-Earth space.
In the late 1990s, various problems began to periodically arise on board the station due to the constant failure of instruments and systems. The year 1997 was especially “productive” for incidents.
On February 23, a fire broke out at the station - an atmosphere regeneration oxygen bomb ignited. On April 29, the air conditioning system failed due to a leak, and on June 25, 1997, the Progress M-34 transport spacecraft collided with the docked Spektr module during manual docking in teleoperator control mode.
The last emergency was the most unpleasant in the history of the station. The collision resulted in depressurization of the module, damage to the solar panels, temporary disruption of the power supply to the station, and loss of orientation. I had to literally cut off the module from the rest of the complex.
The decision to stop the operation of the legendary Mir space station was signed in January 2001. Among the reasons, the station's resource depletion, incidents and accidents at the station, expensive maintenance (about $ 200 million per year) were officially named.
Numerous projects have been proposed to save the station. It is known that Iran has offered to finance the station for another two or three years. Tehran was interested in the military use of the station, since the equipment located at the station carried a double load - civilian and military.
Nevertheless, the Mir orbital station was sunk in the Pacific Ocean on March 23, 2001. The operation to sink the Mir was unique and was carried out with the help of the Progress cargo ship docked to it. He gave the station a final boost, allowing it to be successfully deorbited at an altitude of 159 kilometers above the Earth.
At about 9 a.m. Moscow time, the station entered the dense layers of the atmosphere, where it collapsed, and the unburned fragments fell into a predetermined area - into the Pacific Ocean area free of navigation near the Fiji Islands (40 degrees south latitude and 160 degrees west longitude).
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 base 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 is 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 astronaut, twice Hero, said about this in 2001 Soviet Union Georgy Mikhailovich Grechko (May 25, 1931 - April 8, 2017): "Links to a large number of emergency situations is absurd. In difficult technical systems there are always failures. 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. Discharged for unknown reason rechargeable batteries, 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 new course 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 was the beginning end. Contracts, of course, were found, but not to the extent required to maintain enterprises in working order. 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.
National Aeronautics Agency and space research The United States /NASA/ and the European Space Agency /ESA/ will assist Russian specialists in monitoring the trajectory of the descent of the Mir space station from orbit in an area where there are no domestic means of radio visibility. The head of Rosaviakosmos, Yury Koptev, told a RIA Novosti correspondent about this on Tuesday.
At the same time, he noted that the program for the flooding of the Russian station "Mir" was entirely developed by domestic industry and scientific organizations, in particular, the Moscow Institute of Applied Mathematics, 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 future fate Mir station.
On the other hand, the head of Rosaviakosmos, Yuri Koptev, has a different opinion, who, in an interview with ITAR-TASS on Monday, said: "If we do not flood the Mir station from March 13 to March 15, how does the state of the Earth's atmosphere today determine , 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 - Vice President Russian Academy Sci., Director of the Institute for Socio-Political Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Gennady Osipov 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 flooding of the Mir station
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 in Russian Center flight control 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 to last way a close friend... 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?
For myself, I decided that if the station was financed stably and in 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 would fly 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 satellite Earth. 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.
Training began almost immediately after the start space age- 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 Living being can survive launch into orbit and weightlessness. This allowed scientists and designers to start preparing space flight ship with a person on board.
Laika became a hero who died in the name of science. Today there are photographs of the heroic animal in every museum of astronautics and in huge number books about space, various products of everyday use were named after her, postcards and stamps were also issued in her honor. April 11, 2008 in Moscow on Petrovsky-Razumovskaya alley on the territory of the Institute military medicine, where the space experiment was being prepared, a monument to Laika was erected. The two-meter monument is 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, ROSCOSMOS State Corporation and the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) 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 application 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 purpose of cooperation in the field of navigation is rational use 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 comparative analysis the American program "Spaceshuttle" and our domestic "Energy-Buran".
Materials used in the article:
https://ria.ru/science/20110323/356933210.html
Mir (Salyut-8) is a Soviet (later Russian) orbital station of the third generation, which was a complex multi-purpose research complex. It was launched into orbit in February 1986, and on March 23, 2001 it was sunk in the Pacific Ocean. 280 organizations worked on Mir under the auspices of 20 ministries and departments. The base unit was launched into orbit on February 20, 1986. Then, over the course of 10 years, six more modules were docked one after the other. So, the general opinion, which is considered to be the fundamental axiom - "the estimated cost of the Mir OS is $ 3 billion. According to experts, its resources have been spent by no more than 50%, that is, its residual value is about $ 1.5 billion. According to Experts estimate that the cost of Mir's user resources is $220-240 million a year, while maintaining and ensuring the normal functioning of the station requires $200 million a year." There are also more absurd versions of the sinking of the station, such as, for example, "anomalous organisms that began to develop at the station itself. At the time of the sinking, the entire station was "CAPTURED" by unknown fungi that looked like algae, which NASA chemists could not destroy. Therefore, it was accepted the decision to burn in the atmosphere a pest that poses a huge danger to human life. Spores of the fungus, penetrating the respiratory tract, caused pulmonary edema in astronauts, which led to death after 36 hours. The origin of the fungus is still unknown. " Let's leave science fiction as the domain of Hollywood and return to "our sheep."
So, we must believe that $200 million a year is a lot of money for Russia (even under the most difficult economic conditions in which it lived)? Or are there other reasons that high-ranking officials in the Kremlin offices are silent about?
“This happened at the end of 1989-90, it was noticeable on the part of Gorbachev and his company, who did not believe in the strength of our science, industry, in the strength of our economy. And after the deliberate destruction of the Soviet economy by this whole company and Yeltsin, when he came to power, everyone turned away from astronautics. "This is the opinion of the Minister of General Machine Building of the USSR Oleg Baklanov.
Here is the opinion of cosmonaut Gennady Strekalov: “The fact that we are going to sink the Mir station is a political decision. First of all, this is necessary for the United States, Russia’s main competitor in space…”
And, finally, the general opinion of the opponents of the destruction of the station - "the end of the Mir program will lead to the reduction of more than 100 thousand jobs for highly qualified scientific and engineering workers. For the domestic political situation, this is an increase in social tension, the elimination of modern high-tech industries, which, if properly set management could in the future become the basis for the growth of the country's welfare. In addition, the flooding of the domestic station will infringe on the spiritual principle and undermine faith in the future of the country for several generations of Russians, especially those who witnessed the creation of space technology, which they were proud of."
What problems can the exploration of space bring to earthlings?
In 2013, at the age of 69, the remarkable Russian cosmonaut Alexander Serebrov, who had many orders and medals for great services in the field of exploration, exploration and use of outer space, many years of conscientious work, and active social activities, passed away.
During his professional career as a cosmonaut, he made four flights on Soyuz T-7 spacecraft on Salyut-7 (returned on Soyuz T-5), Soyuz T-8 on Salyut-7 ", "Soyuz TM-8" and "Soyuz TM-17". Moreover, both last expeditions on the Russian orbital station "Mir".
His total flight time was 372 days 22 hours. Serebrov completed a total of 10 exits in outer space. Only another Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyov surpassed these records in 1997. The total time of Serebrov's work in airless space is 31 hours 49 minutes.
But few people know that for the last ten years of his life, after his last expedition to the Mir orbital station, the cosmonaut suffered from an unknown disease, which he contracted in space.
The thing is that terrestrial bacteria, fungi and viruses under the influence of powerful cosmic radiation are capable of various mutations. They turn into strong and extremely resistant and viable organisms, with which it is practically, and often completely impossible, to fight. For one day of stay in space, an astronaut receives an annual dose of cosmic radiation, which we usually receive on Earth. Microorganisms, once caught in space and exposed to radiation, become extremely dangerous for humans. Not a single even the most modern medicine can cope with them, since they have no analogues on Earth. The viability of these viruses, fungi and bacteria is amazing, they are not afraid of extremely low and high temperatures, not a single medication takes them.
Later, returning to Earth, Serebrov said: “I blew out the filter, I look at some pieces there at the ends. I put a wire in there and pull out a one and a half meter worm. It was flexible, yellow, with dark brown spots. Like such a snake.”
One bacterium, in space, mutated so that it could turn into a huge slug, which you will not find on Earth. The cosmonauts were shocked by what they saw, and a few days later Serebrov developed a high temperature, nausea and vomiting began.
On Earth, the symptoms of an unknown 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 put accurate diagnosis doctors couldn't.
All the doctors could tell the astronaut was that "you have an unknown fungal infection in your intestines, but we have no analogues on Earth - it's some kind of mutant, so we don't know how to treat it."
The MIR station, which was attacked by mutated microorganisms, was suddenly flooded in the Pacific Ocean, although according to the official version, it was flooded because it had exhausted its resource. True, it is not known whether space fungi, viruses and bacteria could survive during the passage of the station in earth's atmosphere. Some scholars do not dismiss this possibility. And you yourself understand what follows from this.
It's funny that the decision to flood the station at one time served as a massive outburst PutinLeaked. How little we still know to evaluate the decisions we make.
Here is just one of the many PutinLinks on this topic from Boris Mironov
"No arguments of scientists, cosmonauts, military men have convinced President Putin to stop the fateful decision for Russia...
The betrayal of power is obvious and visible in the destruction of the foundations of modern state defense - its cosmic stronghold.
Without a powerful space base, there can be no powerful state, and the concept of developing the latest weapons, and the modern doctrine of warfare - everything is based on space.
But everything that has been achieved by us since 1957 in space, from the world's first domestic artificial satellite of the Earth, all this has been destroyed to the root, destroyed meaningfully and mercilessly, etc....
From the book Mysteries of Civilizations
Chapter 1. The Mystery of Mir Station
The fact that we still don't know much about nature, proves and 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 watched the fall dozens of times celestial bodies right 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 with a length of one and a half meters. 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 the near-Earth outer space 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 tightened different types mold 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 into upper layers 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 metal structures from which the outer shell is made. spaceship. 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, with unknown to science the properties of microorganisms are connected not only with the mystery of the Mir station
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 successively, and then a refrigerant leak began - 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 Earth, containing Additional materials for repairing the station, oxygen bombs for regeneration, 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 unit, 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.
