Word: mir
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When they break out the cognac aboard Mir, it's usually a sign that the cosmonauts have survived yet another harrowing test of their nerves. Today, they could be forgiven for taking a celebratory nip: In what might have been a rerun of last June's disastrous collision, the autopilot docking mechanism aboard a supply ship again failed -- but this time, Mir's commander managed to use the manual controls to safely dock the vessel. And inside the cargo vessel, for the cosmonaut who has everything, a new set of wrenches. Now they can fix that damn door...
MOSCOW: On Mir, failure is something of a given. But you know it?s getting serious when Mission Control won?t let you hear what?s going on up there. After a planned space walk was canceled Tuesday because the cosmonauts were unable to open the hatch, officials on the ground turned off the audio system that lets reporters listen in on the radio traffic. ?You?re not supposed to listen to that,? snapped Mission Control Chief Vladimir Solovyov. ?You will get the news from...
...sensitive? Well, the string of accidents that turned Mir into a global joke began just over a year ago, and Solovyov is bound to be wary of a repeat performance. Especially when the news is pretty embarrassing: Not even Nikolai Budarin, the strongest cosmonaut of the current crop, could open that darn hatch -- and he broke three wrenches trying. ?I am somewhat distressed that we have failed to open the hatch,? Solovyov conceded. That?s an understatement. The space walk now has to wait until a new stock of wrenches is sent up in the next cargo ship -- and Mission...
...frenzied race to record ?firsts? in space may have been replaced by genteel cooperation, but Moscow is set to edge out the U.S. in becoming the first nation to send a national politician into space. Former Kremlin national security adviser Yuri Baturin will be blasted up to Mir on August 12 to take part in a research mission. That?s two months ahead of Senator John Glenn?s planned sojourn on the shuttle Discovery. As space travel for the political executive goes, Discovery easily has the edge over Mir for comfort and safety, but the Russian station...
...Gorbachev era when they think of today's Russian market. They still bring their extra blue jeans and Beatles tapes here to sell on the street. Not only are products like these readily available, but many stores in Moscow carry products I have never even seen in America. Virtualny Mir (Virtual World), an electronics store, boasts products like a fifty-inch high-definition television with DVD players and a strobe-lit dishwasher with a transparent front. After six years of Western companies cultivating the idea of conspicuous consumption here, the Russians are finally catching...