Tim Furniss/LONDON
The Russian Mir space station was to have been taken out of orbit last summer, and the country's space efforts diverted to the International Space Station (ISS). If MirCorp had not stepped in, the venerable space station would probably have ended its life burning up in the Earth's atmosphere during a controlled re-entry.
But MirCorp itself needs intervention - in the form of increased financial investment - to keep the space station in operation.
MirCorp was created as a partnership between Russia's Energia, which built Mir and holds 60% of shares (but which is indirectly majority-owned by the Russian Government), and Western investment, mainly from US businessmen, including Walter Anderson of the Gold & Appel company and internet entrepreneur Chirinjeev Kathuria. It is headed by Jeffrey Manber, who previously set up Energia's US office.
The company funded two Progress missions and a crewed Soyuz flight last year to restore Mir to working order. Anderson committed $14.2 million to the flight of an unmanned Progress tanker in January this year and invested in the $20 million flight of the first "commercial" cosmonaut crew, launched in April.
Funding Mir
How much of the estimated $40 million cost of these missions came from US investors and how much came from Energia's government sources is unclear. Mir is still a source of Russian pride: despite budget cuts, the government was reluctant to remove it from orbit.
MirCorp will need at least $100 million to keep Mir running, but has found a commercial customer in Dennis Tito, a US entrepreneur who is to join the first of a planned series of trips that will carry "tourists", or Citizen Explorers as MirCorp calls them. Tito will pay $20 million to train as a cosmonaut and be launched on a 10-day trip next year, seven days of which will actually be on Mir and the rest of the time aboard the Soyuz ferry craft.
MirCorp has also announced plans to fly two Russian cosmonaut crews to Mir next year (one with Tito on the crew exchange flight), but it is unclear how these missions will be funded.
Space tourism is one avenue advertised for Mir's commercial use. Others include advertising and scientific research. Concepts for repairing and assembling satellites on the space station and deploying them have been suggested, as well as using it for launching missions to the moon and planets. And Kathuria sees it becoming a "space portal" to the internet.
Also, MirCorp says it has the rights to the commercial image archive of the entire Russian manned space programme, which it describes as "a big business", another source of considerable potential revenue.
Officials privately state that MirCorp needs $800 million investment to be viable and that the company expects to raise this from an initial public offering. Potential investors will be diligent in assessing the company's potential, getting beneath its bullish public statements.
Dwayne Day, a US space policy analyst, doubts MirCorp's claims. Day has worked for the US Government and is known for his analysis of early US reconnaissance satellite programmes before their declassification.
Much attention on the saving of Mir, says Day, "focused on the question of whether it will cause Russia to neglect its commitments to the ISS". He adds that "far less attention has been paid to MirCorp's business strategy and whether or not it will be successful". Day continues: "It is extremely unlikely that MirCorp will be commercially successful...some of MirCorp's public statements demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of orbital mechanics and commercial space operations."
Manber, however, is bullish about Mir's prospects and has hired the William Morris public relations agency to identify potential customers.
MirCorp points to its track record of accomplishments: "We have never promised what we cannot do. The market will determine whether we are successful or not. We are building on what exists and doing it in a very pragmatic manner. Yes, Mir has had some rough times but it is still operational, and there is an aura about it," the company adds.
Even before MirCorp, companies paid either the Russian Government or individual cosmonauts on Mir to have their logos featured during TV coverage. For example, one Mir crew was paid to drink Israeli milk on TV. Advertising has some potential, but will raise only modest sums of money, says Day. Making a full-blown TV advertisement on Mir would be another matter. Day contends that Mir has a "negative image" and is seen as being like a used car - hardly the vehicle with which to associate a new product.
But MirCorp argues: "Even people who do not know about space have heard of Mir. What better worldwide platform could you possibly have for advertising?"
Tito's foray into orbit as history's first Citizen Explorer will certainly be a milestone, but whether it will open the floodgates to space is questionable. Few people have $20 million to pay for the privilege. In addition, the Explorer must become a cosmonaut and meet strict medical requirements, and risk being disqualified from flying as late as the morning of the launch. Explorers would have to undergo months of training and tolerate invasive medicals.
They would also become a subservient part of a crew headed by professional cosmonauts, which means most visitors to Mir will be reduced to looking out of the window and handling the menial tasks of "housecleaning".
At $20 million, Tito's 10 days on Soyuz and Mir is the equivalent of $83,330 per hour, of which about 80h will be spent sleeping. Also, as many international visitors can attest, flying a Soyuz and living on Mir is no picnic. A third of space travellers suffer from sickness, or space adaptation syndrome, in the early days after reaching orbit.
Risk factor
There is also the risk factor. Although no one has been lost in an accident on a Soyuz launch or on Mir, the Challenger accident in 1986 cost teacher Christa McAuliffe her life, along with an industrial astronaut and five NASA crew. On Mir, close shaves have included a collision with a tanker craft and very nearly instant depressurisation.
Mir has also been promoted as a weightless laboratory, particularly for microgravity research into materials processing, such as making crystals for pharmaceutical use. Such equipment depends on a reliable electrical system and Mir's has proved unreliable. "Mir is not a good platform for scientific research," says Day.
The best microgravity conditions are created on free-flying platforms, not on crewed stations or vehicles which suffer vibration from crew movements, circulation fans and manoeuvring thrusters. "NASA is spending hundreds of millions of dollars designing systems on the International Space Station to isolate experiments from such shocks," says Day.
Portal potential?
Day also questions Mir's use as an internet portal. A portal is a means by which independent users can access the world wide web and it has to be available 100% of the time. "Mir cannot be a portal because it is not in constant communication with the ground," Day says. In fact direct contact with the ground occurs for only a few minutes of each 90-minute orbit.
MirCorp counters, however, that it can offer continuous live access "by communicating via a satellite system like Inmarsat. We have a web site now that during missions includes downlinks from Mir. News organisations have shown interest in using the web site".
Paying subscribers will be able to obtain news and webcam images from Mir as well as images of the Earth. However, some would argue that there are hundreds of existing space-related web sites on the ground that make little revenue.
Whether these plans for Mir's long term commercial use come to fruition remain to be seen. But MirCorp's emergence and Russia's desire to keep Mir in orbit have led to a stay of execution. And, if MirCorp's claims become reality, Mir will remain in orbit for years, offering commercial opportunities for investors.
Source: Flight International
