SPACE STATIONS
MIR
Cosmonauts have been living and working on the 120 tonne Russian Mir space station since it was first manned in March 1986, although the final module was faunched in 1997. Traveling 483 km a second and orbiting Earth every 92 minutes, Mir is to be deorbited in 1999 and most of it will burn up while re-entering the atmosphere. Any surviving fragments will fall into the Pacific.
· Progress brings food
and takes waste to burn
Mir is made up of five main modules and is fitted with solar panels which permanently point towards the sun in order to provide electricity for the station. At Mir’s height between 299 and 386 km above the planet – the outside temperature is 400°C in sunlight and -100°C in the Earth’s shadow. Liquid waste is recycled with provides the station’s oxygen. Originally, solid waste was ejected from Mir into space but this was stopped after world-wide concern over the growth of space debris.
· Health hazards, Exercise
and mould in space and time
The Russian Space Agency and NASA have learned much from living on Mir about how the human body responds to zero- gravity. Exercise is important the lack of friction on the body causes bones to weaken through the loss of calcium – and on Mir cosmonauts have to exercise three to four hours a day. It was also discovered that the body’s immune system is suppressed in space. Mould that had grown in Mir during its 11 years in space was found to cause hay fever, and common colds become difficult to cope with in space because Zero gravity stops mucous draining down the back of the throat and nose.
ISS
In 1984, US President Ronald Reagan directed NASA to build a space station for launch in 1992. Launch dates have been postponed many times and the station has metamorphosed into one of the biggest co-operative technological projects ever undertaken. The first module, the Russian built Functional Cargo Block, which will serve as the station’s nerve center, was planned to blast off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, in 1998. The second component to be launched will be the USA made Node 1, which will serve as an attachment segment for more modules.
· International co-operation
on space station designs
In Feb 1995, Russians and Americans started sharing Shuttle missions and living on Mir, kicking off the first phase of the ISS project. The second phase, which covers the already begun. Russia has been contracted by NASA to build three of the first their own life and service modules with their own life and habitation systems, the European Space Agency, which is contributing a pressurized laboratory; Japan, which is building a laboratory with an area exposed in space, and Canada, which is building a 17- m long robotic arm for assembly and total maintenance tasks. NASA expects the total cost for the station to be $20.6 billion but the will Street Journal newspaper Predicted in March 1998 that it would amount to $24 billion.
