Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of Mir's re-entry. Easily scorned as old and battered technology ; easily ignored as a relic of the Cold War and hardly relevant in the new 'Culture War' we find ourselves enmired in.
But.
The distinction between 'ship' and 'station' is somewhat artificial. The Mir was a ship that carried its crew around and around the Earth for millions of miles. If it had a spirit, it was battered and creaky - but game.
How much work could have been done in this amount of time if a private company could have bought or leased it? As much - or more - research than has has been done on the ISS in this time, I suspect.
How much would it have cost to buy?
How much for a unmanned launch to rendezvous and boost the Mir to a higher, longer orbit?
How much of a spur to private spacecraft would it have been, for it to have been circleing overhead, waiting?
How much a spur to amateur science, to have this acsess to orbit?
But, like Skylab, it was built by the economies of destruction - and in its time, fell to the same economies.
Ah well.
Mir, we lift a glass; to Mir, the circling, and the fallen.
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