Re: [amsat-bb] NOVA Episode of Mir

["Bill Jones" <wejones@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Having just watched the PBS Nova episode of Mir, I promise not to gripe
> about having the packet frequency change, or at times the digi not working.
> It's amazing this thing is still in orbit and hasn't killed someone. 

I agree. I had the same impression, HOWEVER, I think it is 
really impressive how the old MIR is able to cope with all 
these problems. Ie I really find it hard to imagine a US 
space station being capable of being maintained when the 
power goes out or with a fire on board, etc.  The US 
technology seems to be more safety oriented, with backup 
systems and everything, but I get the impression that the 
backups are just more high technology, with little in the 
way of manual capabilities when the technology fails. I 
hope I'm wrong, but if the international space station ever 
comes into being, I doubt that it will survive problems 
half as well as MIR has. I think abandoning MIR is a 
mistake despite it's apparent problems. I think most of the 
problems with MIR are more related to bad decisions on the 
ground, and lack of funds to replace aging equipment than 
the technology.  I will miss MIR.



   One thing though, I wish I had recorded all those 
interchanges we could monitor on the 143.625 freq during 
all those problems. It would probably make a lot more sense 
now that we know what they were really going through.


+----------------------------------------------+
| Bill Jones, N3JLQ,Sweden, Maine  Zone 4 1/2  |
| wejones@megalink.net                         |
| http://www.megalink.net/~wejones             |
+----------------------------------------------+
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