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 |  | Decision Time Draws Nigh for Mir
posted: 05:07 pm ET
25 October 2000
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Russia to Decide Mir Fate Soon, Says Space Agency
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian government is due to decide in the next few weeks whether to go ahead with a plan to scuttle the Mir space station, a spokesman for the Russian space agency said on Wednesday.
Senior government ministers have said they favor bringing the 14-year-old station out of orbit and letting it crash in the ocean, but space officials have avoided taking a public stand on the fate of what was once the pride of Soviet science.
| While Officials Argue, Station Hangs | | Even while MirCorp and the Russian space authorities discuss the fate of Mir, a Progress cargo ship was working to keep the aging station aloft. For more, click here . |
"Roughly in the next two to three weeks, the government will make a decision," Rosaviakosmos spokesman Sergei Gorbunov told Reuters. "The space agency has prepared documents about the condition of the Mir station and passed them to the government."
Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov was quoted earlier this week as saying the station would probably be ditched in the Pacific Ocean in February.
Russia is focusing its limited resources on the International Space Station (ISS), for which it has built two modules. The first long-term expedition to the ISS is due to be launched from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan next Tuesday.
Gorbunov said the space agency would play no role in the decision on Mir. It was merely informing the government of the state of the craft, which has been losing altitude, and the emptiness of state coffers, he said.
"There is no state financing [for Mir]," he said, adding that he thought a group of Western investors was unlikely to rescue the craft.
The investors, MirCorp, have bought the rights to sell tickets to the public to fly on the space station. "MirCorp unfortunately won't find the money," Gorbunov said. "The most they've come up with is about $40 million and we need $200-250 million."
MirCorp has nonetheless remained bullish about its prospects and one of its clients, the U.S. television network NBC, said on Tuesday it was pressing ahead with a plan to put a member of the public in space in a program called Destination MIR.
"As far as we are concerned, the countdown has begun for the series' liftoff next fall," a spokeswoman said.
MirCorp said in a statement on Tuesday that its first paying customer, former U.S. space program engineer Dennis Tito, was still training for a flight to Mir next year at Russia's Star City cosmonaut training center outside Moscow.
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