Tumlinson is short on patience. He’s a high-energy Texan who believes in order to get something done, you simply do it. No questions asked. No papers filed. Throw in an occasional glass of saki and good conversation with vision, and you can begin weaving a plan that one day promises to transform the empty Russian space station into an orbiting business park and vacation spot 125 miles (200 kilometers) above Earth.
"The Mir was a market-maker," Tumlinson explains. "But the press got so used to bad-mouthing it, no one thought it had any value."
"Sure, the wiring was bad and it had some rust and leaks," Tumlinson said while chomping down a burger and fries. "But if you had one of the most expensive buildings on the planet and the wiring and plumbing were worn out, would you tear it down?"
Tumlinson and Anderson had plans.
"The more people bad-mouthed it, the cheaper it was becoming. 'Walt, we can do something,'" Tumlinson told Anderson.
Tumlinson had already started building a relationship with the Russians through his nonprofit organization, the Foundation for the Non-Governmental Development of Space (FINDS), a policy organization of space activists, scientists, engineers and others. The group, whose main goal is large-scale permanent settlement of space, pulled cash together in December 1998 to get Russian space company RKK Energia to work with Tether Applications in Chula, Vista. California.
The plan was to keep the slowly sinking Mir alive by suspending 44 miles (70 kilometers) of copper wire from below the station, pumping electricity down it and using reverse polarity from Earth to push it back to orbit.
The next step was to go up to the aging space station, check out its condition and shut it down for two years. During that time, Tumlinson and Anderson would spend that time back on the planet getting deep pockets interested in investing in the space station.
By fall of 1999 — after talking with NASA officials who abandoned all hope for the Mir and were now focusing on the new International Space Station set to be completed in 2005 — Tumlinson and his group "basically said that we are going for it. "
The group got on a plane and headed for Moscow to meet with Russian officials to talk about their plans during a three-day whirlwind trip.
Exhausted from jet lag, Tumlinson and his group began negotiations with RKK Energia Chief Yuri Semenov.
They started drafting the first protocol, a non-binding agreement, that Tumlinson until this day doesn’t even remember writing because of the combination of jet lag, stress and vodka.
After presenting the draft to Semenov, Tumlinson et al were anxious as they sat across the table from Semenov.
"Semenov kept giving this big rap about how to deal with the Russian space agency. This is a safety issue. It is going to come down. It’s going to be impossible. Then he turns to his advisers and I hear a series of ‘nyet, nyet, nyet,’ and he turns to me, says ‘dah’ and stands up and shakes my hand. And we all retire with a vodka toast," Tumlinson said.
Deal done, Tumlinson and his crew headed back to the U.S. to present the plan to Anderson who committed to the plan.
But it was the next trip to Russia to lay out the final plans for the Mir that proved to be the most daunting.
"This was one of the most nervous points that I had on the entire project because Walt, like myself, has a fiery personality. He’s a bit of a hard-ass at times and I was so afraid that Anderson and Semenov would not get along," Tumlinson said.
But it all panned out. After both men met, they proved to be kindred spirits, agreeing that they hated bureaucrats, they hated the government’s oversight of everything and they were all for free enterprise.
But it was the next piece of news that jarred Tumlinson and Anderson.
After drawing up the final protocol, the group realized that they were in a race for time. In order to get things moving forward, they had to first go to the State Department to get an okay on the tether, which was classified as a weapon by the agency.
Since Congress had transferred authority over export licensing from the Commerce Department to the State Department, the process could take up to nine months before it was cleared. Meanwhile, the aging Mir was falling out of orbit, as well as losing air after a 1997 crippling crash with an empty Progress cargo ship that collided with the station’s Spektr science module.
"When we were over there, it became clear that we had to commit right then and there, or forget it," Tumlinson said. The U.S. government was planning to bring it down and we are faced with the potential of a delay as we try to get [State Department] approval for the tether."
It was Anderson, the cash cow, who changed direction, committing about $20 million of his own cash to begin marketing the Mir as is. There would be no two-year shutdown. There was no time.
"Let’s just do it," Anderson said in the meeting.
Once back in the U.S., Anderson pulled together a group of investors including internet investor Chirinjeev Kathuria to form Amsterdam-based MirCorp. In February, the company announced its plans to spend nearly $200 million to renovate the station. They are leasing Mir from Energia, which also took a stake in the space venture.
And how does Tumlinson, who has no investment in Mir, feel about saving the orbiting outpost from a funeral at sea?
"We still feel we are going to fail," Tumlinson said. "It’s our underlying philosophy. It’s what keeps us sane."
advertisement
