Mir's Fall Stirs Cold War Echoes

Commentary by CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer

Ask passersby on any Moscow street why Mir is being taken out of orbit, and you’ll probably hear that it’s an American plot.

Mir has plenty of life left in it yet – goes the story – but the Americans are determined to shut Russia out of space exploration. So naturally, they have to eliminate the only remaining Russian-controlled space station.

At a demonstration outside the Russian Space Agency, a crowd of people wearing fur hats shouts and waves Communist flags. Among these mostly elderly Muscovites, conspiracy theories run like wildfire.

"The American president told our President Vladimir Putin to dump Mir," retired physicist Vladimir Petrovich told me. "That’s because equipment on Mir observed an American submarine ramming into and sinking our Kursk submarine. Nothey have to get rid of the evidence."

Petrovich and millions of his fellow citizens who don’t want to see the end of Mir refuse to believe two main facts about the space station.

First, engineers at Russian Mission Control are increasingly worried that glitches in the Mir’s computers have begun to send phantom commands that could destabilize the station and even send it tumbling out of control.

Second, Mir has not been 100 percent Russian controlled for five years, since NASA began paying the impoverished Russian Space Agency to help keep the station in orbit. In all, NASA has paid a billion dollars to the Space Agency; that’s a quarter of Mir’s budget. In return, NASA sent seven American astronauts to work on board the station, and acquired some influence in how the Mir program was run.

But to Janna Mikhaelovna, who once taught mathematics to a famous Soviet cosmonaut, the American financing of Mir is just part of the conspiracy. "The Americans just want to humiliate our science and the effort of our workers in this glorious mission."

Ever since the announcement was made four months ago that Mir would be scrapped, the head of the Russian Space Agency, Yuri Koptev, and Mir’s Flight Director, VladiMir Soloviev, have done their best to convince Russians that it’s the right decision. In the face of massive public skepticism, they have spoken out, given dozens of interviews and been interrogated on national TV.

In fact, that skepticism was fed by months of dithering last year over Mir’s fate by Koptev’s own Space Agency. At one stage, officials announced that Mir would be kept in orbit indefinitely as a joint venture with a European company that wanted to send tourists into space. Even though that plan was ultimately scrapped, it gave the impression that Mir had plenty of life left.

Koptev is still battling that impression. Last month, he was buttonholed by an earnest member of the public after a television interview. "I have an idea," insisted the man, barring Koptev’s way. "We should replace some of Mir’s key modules, and send it to the moon – for communications purposes."

"That’s ridiculous," snapped Koptev. "Believe me, we have considered every single angle, and it is simply not possible to extend Mir’s life."

"But," persisted the man. "We have to. Mir is such a great achievement…."

"Exactly," said Koptev, who has embarrassing memories of the nuclear Soviet satellite that crashed in Northern Canada in 1978, costing the Soviet Union millions of dollars in damages. "And if we want Mir to be remembered as a great achievement and not as an international disgrace, we will end its life now, in a professional way, while we can still control it."

Vladimir Soloviev agrees. He is now Mir’s Flight Director in charge of taking it out of orbit, but back in 198 he was a member of Mir’s very first crew. The infamous on-board accidents in 1997, including a fire and a devastating crash with a supply ship, weren’t necessarily fatal signs, he says. In fact, there were accidents on board from the very beginning. The difference after NASA got involved was the publicity.

"Before in the USSR, all the accidents on board Mir were kept secret. But by the late 1990’s, we had American astronauts visible in gas masks holding fire extinguishers," he says, laughing ruefully. "How can you keep that a secret?"

The problem now is that a huge amount of on board equipment has reached the end of its life and must be replaced. "There is a sensible balance between how much it would take to continue flying and common sense. We could go on indefinitely, renovating the station, replacing this and that. Spending billions. But at this stage, that’s just nonsense."

Soloviev’s rational engineer’s arguments don’t convince one other important group of Russians with a vested interest in Mir: the students at the Moscow Aviation Institute. These are the young scientists being trained for careers in space.

Unlike the Communist flag-waving demonstrators, they don’t see Mir as a symbol of the glorious Soviet past. They see it as the key to their futures. And they do not believe the International Space Station, already in orbit, will offer them the opportunities Mir did.

"I believe there are too many legal loopholes in the contracts Russia has signed to guarantee participation on the ISS," says Petya. "We all know the joke that every second American is a lawyer, and they will find ways to push us out of the project. Even now we know that the commander of the ISS will always be an American and that the station will be controlled from Houston."

"I think the end of Mir does not only reduce opportunity for us at the college, but it also limits Russia’s development," added his friend. "The future lies in space exploration. I don’t think Russian scientists will be allowed to work on the ISS – and as a result Russia will be set back for decades."

This conviction that Russians will work only as lackeys aboard the ISS is rooted in the post Cold War fear and resentment of America that still permeates Russian life. It’s also not an accurate reflection of the truth.

In fact, long after Mir has burned up over the Pacific Ocean, there will be plenty of scope for Russian science in space.

Even though funding for space exploration is a fraction of what it was in the glory days, the Russians are pioneering satellite launches from airplanes. They are still the best and most experienced in docking supply vessels to spacecraft – which will be one of their crucial roles on the ISS. They will also continue to maintain and improve core modules on the ISS – and their participation in the Intrnational Station will probably expand with time, especially as NASA is facing budget cuts.

It may not be the extravagance of a superpower, but unlike Mir, the Russian space program will live on.

©MMI, Viacom Internet Services Inc., All Rights Reserved