Re: Mir orbit to be raised, one shuttle visit

Tyler MacKenzie (tmackenz@mta.ca)
Sun, 13 Dec 1998 23:36:48 -0300

Robert Smathers  (roberts@nmia.com) wrote:

>I wouldn't be
>bothered by my dollars going towards a mission to grab some things
>and pieces for museums like the Smithsonian,

I'd like to see this too, especially as it wouldn't be my tax dollars at
work ;)
But hey, if they could somehow cram 5 tons worth of Mir into the cargo bay,
then chop it up and sell it on the ground ($1000 for a framed 1oz chunk)
they could pay for half the mission! (of course, there'd likely be
royalties to pay to the Russians, etc...)
It's crass, but not unprecedented (I have a piece of the Berlin Wall on my
bookcase).
	Personally, I'd rather see it kept up there as a permanent floating
monument to human exploration of space.
-t

Tyler MacKenzie  MTX
Sackville, N.B., Canada
45.885 -64.368  +15m   Z-0400