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Collision Latest Problem for Trouble-Plagued Mir

The collision between Mir and Progress M-34 last week was the latest in a series of problems to strike the aging space station, leading some to question whether the station was truly safe for its crew.
     At the same time the world's attention was drawn to the collision, new information regarding the seriousness of last February's fire on Mir came to light which indicated the fire was far worse than originally reported.
     Astronaut Jerry Linenger, who had been on Mir at the time of the February 23 fire, reported that the fire burned for 15 minutes, not 90 seconds as originally reported, and flames several feet long blocked access to one of the Soyuz capsules attached to the station.
     February's fire started when a lithium perchlorate candle, burned to generate supplemental oxygen on the station, cracked, shooting flames out of its canister.
     "The flame was maybe 2 feet flying out of this thing," Linenger told the Associated Press. "It looked like sparklers going off and molten metal flying... It was a hot fire."
     Linenger said the station's fire extinguishers could not directly put out the flames, so they instead used them to keep the hull around the burning canister from burning and waited until the fire burned itself out.
     During Linenger's stay on Mir he and his Russian crewmates also had to deal with oxygen generators which broke down and had to be replaced, carbon dioxide scrubbers which also broke down, and leaks in a cooling system which caused the temperature in the station to rise as high as 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) in some modules.
     The Progress collision was also not the first time the station had a close call with a cargo spacecraft. In March a Progress spacecraft missed the station during an automated docking attempt, coming close to but not hitting Mir.
     "It looked like it was coming very fast and it looked like it was coming directly at us," Linenger recalled.
     Some experts on Mir and the Russian space program, such as analyst James Oberg, now believe the station is unsafe for habitation and should be abandoned.
     If the station is abandoned, though, according to one Russian official, they would lose control over the station and it could reenter "unpredictably" within one month.

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