> Does anyone know why ISS and MIR could not be > combined?? > > It seems the cost of developing new modules and > putting them into orbit is far greater than the cost > of changing one or both of their orbits ISS & MIR. > Even if the sections where disassembled and parked > till needed it might be a great cost savings in this > day of the BOTTOM LINE. It might make Russia in the > savior now that NASA is 'tightening its belt'. > It is certainly seems worth consideration. I agree. But: 1) Are their electrical systems compatible? If you try to connect their electrical systems, it would be highly risky. Quite catastrophic, probably. But there is no reason why their electrical systems must be connected. Mir has its own solar arrays. I don't think the Space Shuttle is electrically connected to the ISS when docked.... 2) Do the ISS and Mir have compatible docking ports? They need to be connected in some fashion. Even if the answer is 'no', it shouldn't be too difficult to create a docking module to join the two historic stations. I think this is doable, even though a lot of people (especially Americans, but not myself) think Mir is a piece of junk. Perhaps it *is* junk (I've never been inside, so I can't say), but I still think that Mir can still be put to good use. Unless Mir literally starts falling apart and breaks up into pieces, I don't see how it could harm the ISS in any scenario. If it was up to American NASA, this will never happen. Even a recent docking and re-docking of a Progress with the ISS sent horror and cringe down the spine of NASA. Who knows. Maybe Mir will be saved again. Or maybe Mir, the greatest space station built to date, will burn in glory in less than two weeks (personally, I hoping that at least a particle of Mir will be recovered. We cannot just let this great object just be no more.) ------------------------------ Jonathan T. Wojack tlj18@juno.com 39.706d N 75.683d W http://www.geocities.com/tlj18_99/ 5 hours behind UT (-5) ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Mar 07 2001 - 19:09:07 PST