
The Mir Space Station - rmason
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-mir-space-station-was-a-marvel-a-clusterfuck-and-an-underdog-hero
======
martinpw
Speaking of science on MIR, I was working in a space research department that
was involved in building an X-ray telescope that was attached to MIR. It
actually at one point got repaired in flight with a spacewalk to install a
replacement detector:

[http://www.sron.nl/hea-update-
category-1211/100-hea/2308-com...](http://www.sron.nl/hea-update-
category-1211/100-hea/2308-comis--ttm-on-the-mir-space-station.html)

Ended up in use for several years. One of the challenges was that the whole
space station had to be reoriented to point the telescope, so it was tough to
get to look at what you wanted to see when you wanted to see it. The
technology was cool though. It was designed for hard X-rays (up to 30keV). At
the time mirrors that were used to focus X-rays (using grazing incidence)
could not focus above a few keV. Pinhole camera optics worked at higher
energies but obviously have low throughput. The solution was basically lots of
pinholes arranged in a pattern that produced a highly overlapped image, but
overlapped in a way that allowed a unique deconvolution and reconstruction of
the original source, so you ended up with both relatively high resolution and
also high sensitivity.

Decent high level description here:

[http://www.paulcarlisle.net/codedaperture/](http://www.paulcarlisle.net/codedaperture/)

As mirror technology has improved it is possible to image high resolution
X-rays with mirrors now, but gamma rays are still an application for coded
masks.

~~~
coetzeesg
This is a pretty good video about the subject as well:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ezhdhHNku0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ezhdhHNku0)
\- Coded Mask - Sixty Symbols

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gherkin0
> By the time the station was finally abandoned in 2000, its degeneration into
> a disgusting orbital stinkbomb had become an open secret. In one
> particularly egregious incident in 1998, American astronauts discovered that
> dirty water globules—some of which were roughly the size of basketballs—were
> casually free-floating behind some of the station’s service panels. These
> gross liquid orbs, which were alternately brownish or cloudy white in color,
> had become miniature planets of activity for the opportunistic microbes that
> were attempting to commandeer Mir.

So, how does the ISS compare on the hygiene front? They did show some mold,
but didn't really talk about it. If it's cleaner, what did the ISS do right
and Mir do wrong?

~~~
frik
[http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-
nasa/2007/11...](http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-
nasa/2007/11may_locad3/)

scroll down a bit, a picture description read like this:

 _Fungi on the ISS, growing on a panel where exercise clothes were hung to
dry. "This is a good example of how biological contamination isn't an old
problem or just specific to Mir," points out Mark Ott._

~~~
gherkin0
That's actually the mold I was referring to, but they don't really say much
about the ISS besides that. Almost all of that article is about Mir.

------
creshal
Mir was also rather neat in that it was mostly self-assembling: All big
modules were built from TKS space craft and rendezvoused and docked fully
automatically, with kosmonauts only required for the final touches. While it
did limit available living space (as fraction of total volume), it's a much
more flexible concept than requiring a Shuttle to haul up everything and dock
it under human supervision. Maybe not for manned space stations, but e.g.
long-range interplanetary probes could be launched in parts and self-assemble
before departing for the outer solar system. (Anecdotally a few NASA engineers
were itching do to that for decades, but with the US not having the necessary
technology, it was always rejected.)

------
jkot
I think we should judge it by its budget. The same thing we admire on SpaceX
and other companies.

Wiki says total cost was $4.2 billion over its lifetime (including
development, assembly and orbital operation)

~~~
golergka
Accounting in high-profile USSR projects was often a joke and didn't represent
the real cost.

~~~
SXX
It's just damn hard to evaluate how many hundreds of thousands people was
working for aerospace industry and what would that cost in country with market
economy. There also R&D costs that was at least partially included for ISS
while they was almost secret in USSR and most of documents on it are still not
declassified since it's all military R&D.

This make me think of story on why something like Saturn V can't be easily
replicated as it's was work of so many engineers.

~~~
THRWAWA20160222
Speaking of Saturn V engineers, this may interest you,

[http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-04/16/f-1-moon-
rock...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-04/16/f-1-moon-
rocket/viewall)

~~~
SXX
I readed it before, but thanks for posting it anyway since it's really
interesting read. Decide to link sources I was referring to.

[1] [http://amyshirateitel.com/2011/04/03/the-lost-art-of-the-
sat...](http://amyshirateitel.com/2011/04/03/the-lost-art-of-the-saturn-v/)

[2] [https://www.quora.com/How-did-we-lose-the-technology-to-
go-t...](https://www.quora.com/How-did-we-lose-the-technology-to-go-to-the-
Moon/answer/Robert-Frost-1)

------
avmich
> As the old Russian proverb goes: Арте́льный горшо́к гу́ще кипи́т, meaning
> the “an artel's pot boils denser.” The English equivalent is something along
> the lines of “many hands make light work.”

I'd translate it as "many hands lead to better result." Not easier to achieve,
but better in quality.

~~~
xaduha
Also, accent marks are never used with day-to-day words outside of primary
school and dictionaries.

~~~
rimantas
Most likely copy-paste from wikiquote or something similar.

------
jernfrost
Cool article. It also shows the abundance of problems potentially awaiting
Mars settlers.

The whole thing sort of re-inforces by stereotype about Russians and Russian
equipment. Though guys who build sturdy, robust and uncomfortable stuff with
lots of small glitches. Russians seem very good at making practical, simple
and cheap stuff that lasts a long time.

Americans always seem very good at making stuff comfy and sophisticated but
American solutions often seem overly complicated and expensive. I like to
think SpaceX took a lot of inspiration from the Russian way of doing things
and combining it with American Silicon Valley spirit.

------
frik
I read various articles about Mir and related topics on Wikipedia. The
conclusion was that they had time to do far less experiments because of
various problems. Because of the issues, some modules that were constructed
for Mir, later formed the basis of ISS initial modules.

It's probably depends who writes such articles, someone born in the US,
someone born in former Soviet Russia/CCCP or someone born in another country.

------
jdblair
This is the most amazing Mir story I know. Dave Wolf and Anatoly Solovyev
finished a spacewalk and were locked out by a faulty airlock. Radiolab has a
tremendous recording of Dave Wolf recounting the experience.

[http://www.radiolab.org/story/242184-dark-side-
earth/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/242184-dark-side-earth/)

------
nutmeg
Just started reading Dragonfly: NASA And The Crisis Aboard Mir
[[http://www.amazon.com/Dragonfly-NASA-And-Crisis-
Aboard/dp/08...](http://www.amazon.com/Dragonfly-NASA-And-Crisis-
Aboard/dp/0887307833)]. It seems to be an interesting story about problems
that plagued NASA and Russia in the 90s.

------
thomasdd
Cool. Inspired my to watch documents about Mir or ISS on TV (Youtube) this
evening.

~~~
ju-st
Can you recommend a good one about Mir? Thx

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mirimir
Sweet article :) But it doesn't mention that they made their own "vodka" (or
whatever you'd call ethanol distilled from fermented mixed carbohydrates).

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huangc10
I enjoy reading articles like these for these reasons (in priority I might
add): 1) I am and have been a space enthusiast since my first space shuttle
Lego set 2) I am a big sci-fi fan 3) I am an Engineer 4) My dream is to go to
/ work in space and possibly other planets 5) I believe space and exploration
can bring the human race together

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TylerH
What a useless HN link title

~~~
avmich
No, I think it summarizes the article rather well. What I'm not fully agreeing
with is apparent emphasis on Mir shortcomings - a big part in the beginning of
the article lists those problems which found during 15 years of service.

Mir was in large part for science - and it did that rather well. Along that,
it also taught how humans can be working together, and how to build a long-
term (from today's standpoint) station for space. And, teaching that, Mir
shown a set of problems - fortunately without catastrophes.

