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 |  | Do Svidanya, Mir
By Gentry Lee
Special to SPACE.com
posted: 10:31 am ET
11 April 2001
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Do Svidaniya, Mir
The plunge of the Russian space station Mir into the South Pacific last month marked more than the end of an era in space exploration. In the truest sense the demise of Mir, an anachronism for most of the last decade of its existence, was the final sentence in the epilogue to an historical epoch that chronicled the struggle for world supremacy between the Soviet Union and the United States of America.
For four decades, from the conclusion of World War II until the years just before the collapse of the Soviet Union in August 1991, the world was essentially polarized between the two great powers. Competition in space was just one element of a larger, more significant contest with enormous historical consequences. Mir, launched in February 1986 during Mikhail Gorbachev’s "perestroika" period, was the last of the major Soviet accomplishments in space. The space station, managed by the Russians after the breakup of the Soviet Union, endured almost a decade longer than the political entity that had fostered its development.
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Struggle for the high frontier
In the early years of the Cold War, the frontiers of space were just one of the locations for the battle for supremacy between the two great powers. Being first in space suggested a technological superiority, which in turn implied a possible military superiority as well.
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev understood the significance of space engineering accomplishments very well. On October 4, 1957, after a secret crash development program recommended by the brilliant engineer Sergei Korolev, Khrushchev’s Soviet Union stunned the world by launching Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
Sputnik was an enormous public relations success. In the eyes of the world, its launch vaulted the Soviet Union into at least an equal position with the United States in terms of overall technological capability. Sputnik’s presence in orbit sent tremors through the western democracies and galvanized a complacent America to establish its own comprehensive space program.
Watching the skies
I was in high school when Sputnik began circling the globe every 96 minutes. Eager and enthusiastic, a few of my classmates and I raised our eyes skyward on clear nights, searching for a glimpse of this amazing Soviet engineering achievement. My father, who had been an officer in the South Pacific during World War II and had remained in the U.S. Army reserves after the war had ended, tempered my enthusiasm for Sputnik by pointing out the possible military ramifications of the Soviet accomplishment. Chastened by my father, I nevertheless still found myself fascinated by Sputnik and the possibilities of space exploration it suggested.
The impact of Sputnik lasted for years. In 1961, during his inaugural speech, the newly-elected American president John Kennedy announced to the world that the United States intended to land an American on the moon before the end of the '60s. The Apollo program was primarily created to demonstrate that the United States was still the premier technological power in the world. Apollo was the answer to Sputnik. With the success of Apollo, the United States accomplished its goal and reclaimed its position as the world’s dominant engineering nation.
Frustrated by their inability to build a launch vehicle that could carry their own cosmonauts to the Moon, the Soviet Union nevertheless continued with a vigorous space program for another 20 years after the first Apollo landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969.
The Soviet achievements were spectacular, both in manned spaceflight and in robotic space exploration. Precursor manned orbiting vehicles provided valuable engineering and biological information that was used in the design of Mir. Three robotic Luna spacecraft landed on the moon, collected samples of lunar material, and returned them to the Earth. This remarkable technological feat, which still stands as the only successful sample return mission to another planetary body, demonstrated both the ingenuity and the systems engineering capability of the Soviet designers.
The suite of Venera spacecraft represents the most outstanding accomplishment of the Soviet Union in planetary exploration. The target of all the Venera spacecraft was the planet Venus. In 1967 the Venera 4 probe provided information about the composition of the upper atmosphere of Venus. In 1970 Venera 7 became the first spacecraft ever to land on another planet, transmitting data for over twenty minutes from the surface. Another Venusian landing was made by Venera 8 a year and a half later.
From this suite of spacecraft the world derived a composite picture of the nature of our nearest planetary neighbor. Sulfuric acid is just one of the many unusual components of the thick atmosphere of Venus. The surface of Venus suggests the Judaeo-Christian concept of Hell, with a pressure over 90 times as great as the sea level pressure on the Earth and blistering temperatures hot enough to melt metals like lead. For this detailed knowledge of Venus, the world is indebted to the Soviet space program and their Venera probes.
The Soviets also had a vigorous robotic program to explore Mars, but it was plagued by engineering failures. Nevertheless, their plans for Martian projects clearly acted as a spur for NASA’s ambitious robotic exploration of Mars and led to the successes of the Mariner ’71 Mars orbital mission and the twin Viking landings in 1976.
The beginning and the end
Sputnik was the beginning of the Soviet space program. Mir was the grand finale. The legacy of Mir is enormous. Mir was, in a sense, the first space colony built by humans. Cosmonauts from the Soviet Union and many guest nations lived on Mir for several months at a time, allowing biological scientists to make in depth studies of the impact of long duration weightlessness on human beings. As a result of that treasure trove of data, the patterns of human bone and muscle degradation during extended weightlessness are now reasonably well understood. Biologists and engineers are now using this information to design systems that will enable humans to safely endure the rigors of possible future flights to Mars.
During the last years of its operation, Mir acted essentially as a precursor test facility for the International Space Station (ISS). Six different American astronauts, starting with Norman Thagard in 1995 and including Shannon Lucid, whose 179-day stay on Mir established an American record for spaceflight duration that has not yet been broken, spent over one hundred days each onboard Mir. These American astronauts were heavily instrumented during their missions, and the resulting data added immeasurably to our knowledge of the effects of weightlessness on humans.
Now both Mir and the Soviet space program are history. Russian engineers and scientists justifiably celebrated Mir’s accomplishments after it crashed into the South Pacific. But it was a bittersweet celebration. For them, and for the other talented men and women from the former Soviet Union who dedicated their lives and careers to the exploration of space, the future is uncertain. A fortunate few of them will be part of the Russian effort in support of the ISS, or other multinational space exploration efforts, but the halcyon days of Soviet eminence in space are definitely past.
The community of people who work in space exploration are united by a common desire to understand the mysteries of the universe. Talent, regardless of race, creed, or national origin, is recognized and respected. In spite of some of the negative overtones of the competition in space between the United States and the Soviet Union, over the years a strong bond and a profound respect has developed between space scientists and engineers in the two nations. It is because of this enduring bond that many members of the American space team find themselves saddened by the passing of the Soviet space era.
Do svidanya, Mir. Your contributions to mankind’s knowledge and its history have been extraordinary. We honor your outstanding work with a grateful tribute that we extend to every Soviet space scientist and engineer of the past four decades whose effort has added to human understanding of the universe. Thank you for what you have done.
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