Living somewhere out of this world.

Space travel and space exploration has been the dream of mankind for centuries. Having achieved this many years ago space tourism is now the dream of the future.

There have been many impressive space shuttles and rockets built along with some very impressive space stations like the Mir Space Station. This was the pinnacle of the Soviet Space programme and its last hurrah before the collapse of the USSR and the communist era in Russia. The money had finally run out. Sadly, it came as the Cold war was ending and the general theme of the Russia was a period of overtures and reconciliation. This was emphasised by the name Mir, it is Russian for peace.

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We are so inspired by space that people are choosing to name their children after galactic elements like star and moon and there are many businesses who also use galaxy based references in their branding and imagery. For example if you are looking for an ‘out of this world website’ there is a very aptly named company whose website is http://www.starwebinnovations.co.uk/ you can also find them by searching for Reading web design.

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Mir was an ambitious project. It was set to rival Nasa’s Skylab in its scale and design. The Russians had learned form the mistakes of previous attempts and, rather than build the project in space, it was cleverly sent up in individual stages which could be forge together when the orbit of the next piece was in line. All of the parts of Mir were successful launched by the Soyluz space rocket system that had served the Soviets so well down through the years. Mir’s work involved the study of human’s ability to remain in space and its effects on the biology and psychology of the Cosmonaut. As ever with the Soviets they did not limit this to just men but were keen to ensure that women were part of the experiments to ensure that a solid basis of data was made available. It is thought that without this ground-breaking work the current International Space Station would not be  the incredible success it is continuing to be.

The final days of Mir were disappointing and its end was somewhat ignominious. This is a great shame after the wonderful service and knowledge that it provided. As the Soviet Union began to run out of money the state funding for the project was slowly eradicated. The systems on the station were outdated and the protection that it provided against radiation were wearing away and were not being replaced. As the Soviet Union’s economy collapsed the project of Mir 2, its replacement was dropped and there was even a concern that there would be no money to remove the current Cosmonaut’s on board. Warming of relations with the USA meant that NASA was able to provide support and Mir was allowed to descended back to the earth with most of it burning up on re-entry and the rest crashing harmlessly into the South Pacific Ocean.