Mir space station history – http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4225/mir/toc-mir.htm
Representative questions that can be answered with this resource:
- What are some ways to resupply your space station?
- When did Mir burn up in Earth’s atmosphere?
- What was the purpose of the Kvant I module?
This is an extract from a longer book about the Shuttle-Mir program (http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4225/toc/toc-level1.htm). This section deals with the Soviet/Russian Mir Space Station, which came after Skylab and before the current International Space Station. It is a description and history from the American perspective and is put into the context of the “Shuttle-Mir” program. The American perspective is non-hostile, as this portion of the introduction shows:
The space station Mir became a legend in its own time reflecting Russia’s past space glories and her future as a leader in space.
The Russian Space Station Mir endured 15 years in orbit, three times its planned lifetime. It outlasted the Soviet Union, that launched it into space. It hosted scores of crewmembers and international visitors. It raised the first crop of wheat to be grown from seed to seed in outer space. It was the scene of joyous reunions, feats of courage, moments of panic, and months of grim determination. It suffered dangerous fires, a nearly catastrophic collision, and darkened periods of out-of-control tumbling.
The section on Mir is subdivided into short blocks organized around the various components of Mir: Mir Base Block, Kvant I, Kvant II, Kristall, Spektr, Priroda, Progress, Docking Module, Solar Arrays, Interior. These include pictures and descriptions of functions.
In addition there are chapters dealing with launch publicity in the Soviet Union, a description of how Cosmonauts returned from Mir and a description of Mir Expeditions 17-25, which cover the time of the Shuttle Mir program. The Mir Expeditions were scheduled to be six months and for various reasons some cosmonauts stayed in the station for more than a year. This could be psychologically hard and was probably part of the inspiration for the crazy cosmonaut scenes in the Bruce Willis movie Armageddon.
Two other sections linked from the Mir text deserve mention. One is “Bilingual Blues”, which examines the training that NASA Mir astronauts received in Russian. The quality of language training varied by expedition. According to the text, “Mir Astronaut John Blaha thought that inadequate language preparation was perhaps NASA’s “biggest mistake” of the Shuttle-Mir Program, although he became comfortable with Russian while onboard Mir.”
The section on “Long Duration Psychology” notes differences in training between astronauts and cosmonauts. In particular, Cosmonauts have ground training in isolation that lasts between two weeks and thirty days. This difference in training and the lack of psychological compatibility matching on the American side were noted as responsible for some friction on the station. It is a good read if your story includes small crews cut off from meaningful contact.