(MOSCOW) -- Recent speculation has pointed to U.S. movie director James Cameron as a potential savior for the Mir space station, but neither his own spokespeople, nor the Russian space agency said they know anything of such a plan.
According to Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Cameron is notorious for finding money for his projects. Thus, there is a good reason to believe that the movie director will have no or little problem finding money for a mission to Mir -- if he is going at all.
However, while a MirCorp source has told SPACE.com that a recent Cameron appearance on NBC indicates that the filmmaker "wants to go to Mir," a spokeswoman for Cameron's company Lightstorm Productions has
," Rosaviacosmos spokesman Sergey Gorbunov told SPACE.com. "Three days ago the company representatives called RKK President Yuri Semenov and asked him to put a decision about Mirs fate on hold for three more weeks. They promised to find $10 million during this period of time. But it would be very naive to believe that if they did not manage to find such a sum of money last summer, they will do it in three weeks," he said.
It will cost an estimated $200 million to keep Mir in orbit through 2001.
Straining at the seams
The Mir issue spotlights the increasingly estranged relationship between RKK Energia and the Russian government.
At a recent meeting of the Russian Duma, RKK Energia President Yuri Semenov accused Yuri Koptev, the general director of Rosaviacosmos, of being unable to understand the significance of piloted spaceflight for the Russian economy.
The criticism was especially surprising because Koptev also happens to be a member of RKK Energia's board of directors and personally shouldered a lot of Mir's operational support in the early 1990s.
Tito may still have a ride
According to Gorbunov, Dennis Tito may still fly to the International Space Station (ISS), currently under construction, even if Mir is deorbited.
A number of Soyuz "taxi" missions have been scheduled to fly to the ISS, both to ferry new crew members back and forth and to allow ground controllers to cycle fresh Soyuz vehicles to the station docking facility.
Since some seats in these "taxi" missions are currently empty, Tito could very well be the third person on board, flying for a rotation period -- a week or so -- and than returning to Earth with the relieved crew.
Timetable for a sagging station
As for Mir, only one fact can be taken for granted: Russia will have to send at least two more Progress spacecraft to the station to assure its safe and controlled reentry.
One -- which MirCorp points to as a short-term savior that will keep the station aloft through February -- is scheduled to lift off in mid October.
A second is supposed to fly in February. This pilotless cargo craft will most likely be a modified version with increased fuel capacity that will provide a long enough burn to deorbit -- or reorbit, if money can be found -- the aged Russian outpost.
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