MOSCOW Feb. 7 (Interfax) -- Leader of the Russian Communist Party and of its faction in the Russian State Duma, Gennady Zyuganov, on Wednesday sent an open letter to President Vladimir Putin, urging him to prevent the crashing of the orbital station Mir.
"The U.S. leadership's firm decision to deploy a national missile defense system is making one look at the problem of the orbital complex Mir from an absolutely different angle. Russia's equitable cooperation with the U.S. within the framework of the International Space Station project is becoming increasingly problematical," Zyuganov wrote.
Taking this situation into account, the Russian leadership must mothball the orbital complex Mir in its orbit, Zyuganov wrote. The parliament, the trade unions, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the cosmonauts are all against Mir's dumping. Only the government's financiers, who have frozen the funding of the space program, have come out for crashing the station, he wrote.
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