However, Rosaviacosmos, the Russian space agency, is making sure to guide its one-time crown jewel safely down into the south Pacific, far removed from densely populated areas.

[inset]

If all goes well, the station will get a burial worthy of its role as humanity's first long-term foothold in orbit -- a crucial sketch for the International Space Station, itself a milestone in the road to the Moon, Mars and the high frontier.

For many, the impending end of Mir's 15-year career will be bittersweet.

"You know, it will be the worst day when Mir will come through the atmosphere," two-time Mir veteran Yuri Usachev said. "I spent the more than a year at the station; I spent the best time of my life [there]."

To bring in money, Russia also opened the station to astronauts from a wider array of countries -- France, Japan, the United States -- who could pay the cash-strapped Russian space program for the opportunity to perform experiments in low Earth orbit.

Ironically, the greatest lesson Mir taught humanity was persistence. Visitors to the station broke endurance records for time spent away from Earth, proving that humans can survive long enough in space to make the flight to Mars.

[uplink]

"Human beings lived there for a long time," NASA astronaut James Voss, who trained as a backup member of U.S. missions to Mir, told SPACE.com. "We learned a lot about long-duration spaceflight."

With its increasingly cosmopolitan guest list, Mir also reminded humanity about teamwork, Voss said, paving the way for the cooperative work now going into the International Space Station.

Meanwhile, the station's own endurance record was finally nearing an end. The now-infamous collision with a supply ship in 1997 didn't kill Mir so much as it accelerated the destructive work already caused by metal fatigue and even rot, forcing incoming visitors to spend increasing amounts of flight time on repair work.

Once the International Space Station was well underway as a replacement, Moscow finally decided in 1999 that the time had come for Mir to fall -- but then, a few months later, a parade of would-be rescue plans emerged.

First there was MirCorp and its white-knight backers, who promised to spend up to $200 million to not only save the station, but transform it into a glamorous orbital hotel, charging the elite $20 million apiece to visit humanity's first zero-gravity tourist getaway.

Then there were the plans to send a Russian film crew to Mir, which evaporated when the launch funds failed to arrive -- instead of a matinee idol, the station's operators sent up supplies.

This pattern would hold for much of the rest of the space station's life. While the station's altitude slid nearer to zero, a long list of possible saviors emerged -- industrialist Dennis Tito, filmmaker James Cameron, the Chinese space program, even the backers of a planned NBC game show.

Eventually, the Russians steeled themselves to raise funds of their own -- not to save Mir, but a more modest sum to prepare it for the grave.

Those wistful for the glory days of the Soviet space empire fought the decision, but Mir had already fallen too far to stay aloft on its own power. The station's 13-kiloton homecoming is now inevitable.

The burial will be a global effort. While Russia takes full responsibility for plotting the final trajectories and controlling Mir's thrusters, it has asked the U.S. and European space agencies to share the work of tracking the station around the world.

Rosaviacosmos estimates that there is only a 3-percent probability that the operation will result in wreckage hitting any landmass, populated or otherwise. In the unlikely event that it does, the space agency has taken out a $200 million insurance policy -- the very amount MirCorp had once promised to spend refurbishing the station -- to pay for damage or injury.

And one way or another, the Space Age will go on.

"I have very mixed feelings," NASA astronaut Andy Thomas, who served a five-month tour on Mir in 1998, told SPACE.com. "The best way to describe it is by way of an analogy. Last year I had to buy a new car. Well I chose to buy a new car and I traded in my old car, which I had had for four or five years. And you know, when the dealer drove it away and I saw it for the last time, I really had mixed emotions. You know that car and I had been through a lot together and I was really sorry to see it go. But I knew it had to be done, and I bought the new car.

"You know, you have to move forward. And thats exactly how I feel about the Mir. We have to move forward."