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Mir (Russian: Мир, IPA: [ˈmʲir]; lit. peace or world) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. Mir was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996. It had a greater mass than any previous spacecraft. At the time it was the largest artificial satellite in orbit, succeeded by the International Space Station (ISS) after Mir's orbit decayed. The station served as a microgravity research laboratory in which crews conducted experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology and spacecraft systems with a goal of developing technologies required for permanent occupation of space.
Mir was the first continuously inhabited long-term research station in orbit and held the record for the longest continuous human presence in space at 3,644 days, until it was surpassed by the ISS on 23 October 2010.
Following the success of the Salyut programme, Mir represented the next stage in the Soviet Union's space station programme. The first module of the station, known as the core module or base block, was launched in 1986 and followed by six further modules. Proton rockets were used to launch all of its components except for the docking module, which was installed by a US Space Shuttle mission STS-74 in 1995. When complete, the station consisted of seven pressurised modules and several unpressurised components. Power was provided by several photovoltaic arrays attached directly to the modules. The station was maintained at an orbit between 296 km (184 mi) and 421 km (262 mi) altitude and travelled at an average speed of 27,700 km/h (17,200 mph), completing 15.7 orbits per day. [24]
The station was launched as part of the Soviet Union's manned spaceflight programme effort to maintain a long-term research outpost in space, and following the collapse of the USSR, was operated by the new Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA). As a result, most of the station's occupants were Soviet; through international collaborations such as the Intercosmos, Euromir and Shuttle– Mir programmes, the station was made accessible to space travellers from several Asian, European and North American nations. Mir was deorbited in March 2001 after funding was cut off. The cost of the Mir programme was estimated by former RKA General Director Yuri Koptev in 2001 as $4.2 billion over its lifetime (including development, assembly and orbital operation). [81]
Mir was authorised by a 17 February 1976 decree, to design an improved model of the Salyut DOS-17K space stations. Four Salyut space stations had been launched since 1971, with three more being launched during Mir' s development. It was planned that the station's core module (DOS-7 and the backup DOS-8) would be equipped with a total of four docking ports; two at either end of the station as with the Salyut stations, and an additional two ports on either side of a docking sphere at the front of the station to enable further modules to expand the station's capabilities. By August 1978, this had evolved to the final configuration of one aft port and five ports in a spherical compartment at the forward end of the station. [21]
It was originally planned that the ports would connect to 7.5-tonne (8.3-short-ton) modules derived from the Soyuz spacecraft. These modules would have used a Soyuz propulsion module, as in Soyuz and Progress, and the descent and orbital modules would have been replaced with a long laboratory module. [21] Following a February 1979 governmental resolution, the programme was consolidated with Vladimir Chelomei's manned Almaz military space station programme. The docking ports were reinforced to accommodate 20-tonne (22-short-ton) space station modules based on the TKS spacecraft. NPO Energia was responsible for the overall space station, with work subcontracted to KB Salyut, due to ongoing work on the Energia rocket and Salyut 7, Soyuz-T, and Progress spacecraft. KB Salyut began work in 1979, and drawings were released in 1982 and 1983. New systems incorporated into the station included the Salyut 5B digital flight control computer and gyrodyne flywheels (taken from Almaz), Kurs automatic rendezvous system, Luch satellite communications system, Elektron oxygen generators, and Vozdukh carbon dioxide scrubbers. [21]
By early 1984, work on Mir had halted while all resources were being put into the Buran programme in order to prepare the Buran spacecraft for flight testing. Funding resumed in early 1984 when Valentin Glushko was ordered by the Central Committee's Secretary for Space and Defence to orbit Mir by early 1986, in time for the 27th Communist Party Congress. [21]
It was clear that the planned processing flow could not be followed and still meet the 1986 launch date.
Station structure
The orbital assembly of Mir began on 19 February 1986 with the launch of the Proton-K rocket. Four of the six modules which were later added (Kvant-2 in 1989, Kristall in 1990, Spektr in 1995 and Priroda in 1996) followed the same sequence to be added to the main Mir complex. Firstly, the module would be launched independently on its own Proton-K and chase the station automatically. It would then dock to the forward docking port on the core module's docking node, then extend its Lyappa arm to mate with a fixture on the node's exterior. The arm would then lift the module away from the forward docking port and rotate it on to the radial port where it was to mate, before lowering it to dock. The node was equipped with only two Konus drogues, which were required for dockings. This meant that, prior to the arrival of each new module, the node would have to be depressurised to allow spacewalking cosmonauts to manually relocate the drogue to the next port to be occupied.
The other two expansion modules, Kvant-1 in 1987 and the docking module in 1995, followed different procedures. Kvant-1, having, unlike the four modules mentioned above, no engines of its own, was launched attached to a tug based on the TKS spacecraft which delivered the module to the aft end of the core module instead of the docking node. Once hard docking had been achieved, the tug undocked and deorbited itself. The docking module, meanwhile, was launched aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis during STS-74 and mated to the orbiter's Orbiter Docking System. Atlantis then docked, via the module, to Kristall, then left the module behind when it undocked later in the mission. [57] Various other external components, including three truss structures, several experiments and other unpressurised elements were also mounted to the exterior of the station by cosmonauts conducting a total of eighty spacewalks over the course of the station's history.
The station's assembly marked the beginning of the third generation of space station design, being the first to consist of more than one primary spacecraft (thus opening a new era in space architecture). First generation stations such as Salyut 1 and Skylab had monolithic designs, consisting of one module with no resupply capability; the second generation stations Salyut 6 and Salyut 7 comprised a monolithic station with two ports to allow consumables to be replenished by cargo spacecraft such as Progress. The capability of Mir to be expanded with add-on modules meant that each could be designed with a specific purpose in mind (for instance, the core module functioned largely as living quarters), thus eliminating the need to install all the station's equipment in one module.
In its completed configuration, the space station consisted of seven different modules, each launched into orbit separately over a period of ten years by either Proton-K rockets or Space Shuttle Atlantis.
In addition to the pressurised modules, Mir featured several external components.
To assist in moving objects around the exterior of the station during EVAs, Mir featured two Strela cargo cranes mounted to the sides of the core module, used for moving spacewalking cosmonauts and parts. The cranes consisted of telescopic poles assembled in sections which measured around 1.8 metres (6 ft) when collapsed, but when extended using a hand crank were 14 metres (46 ft) long, meaning that all of the station's modules could be accessed during spacewalks. [91]
Each module was fitted with external components specific to the experiments that were carried out within that module, the most obvious being the Travers antenna mounted to Priroda.
In addition to module-specific equipment, Kvant-2, Kristall, Spektr and Priroda were each equipped with one Lyappa arm, a robotic arm which, after the module had docked to the core module's forward port, grappled one of two fixtures positioned on the core module's docking node. The arriving module's docking probe was then retracted, and the arm raised the module so that it could be pivoted 90° for docking to one of the four radial docking ports.
Photovoltaic (PV) arrays powered Mir. The station used a 28 volt DC supply which provided 5-, 10-, 20- and 50-amp taps. When the station was illuminated by sunlight, several solar arrays mounted on the pressurised modules provided power to Mir' s systems and charged the nickel-cadmium storage batteries installed throughout the station. The arrays rotated in only one degree of freedom over a 180° arc, and tracked the sun using sun sensors and motors installed in the array mounts. The station itself also had to be oriented to ensure optimum illumination of the arrays. When the station's all-sky sensor detected that Mir had entered Earth's shadow, the arrays were rotated to the optimum angle predicted for reacquiring the sun once the station passed out of the shadow. The batteries, each of 60 Ah capacity, were then used to power the station until the arrays recovered their maximum output on the day side of Earth.
The solar arrays themselves were launched and installed over a period of eleven years, more slowly than originally planned, with the station continually suffering from a shortage of power as a result.
This relocation was begun in 1995, when the panels were retracted and the left panel installed on Kvant-1.
Mir was maintained in a near circular orbit with an average perigee of 354 km (220 mi) and an average apogee of 374 km (232 mi), travelling at an average speed of 27,700 km/h (17,200 mph) and completing 15.7 orbits per day.
Attitude control was maintained by a combination of two mechanisms; in order to hold a set attitude, a system of twelve control moment gyroscopes (CMGs, or "gyrodynes") rotating at 10,000 rpm kept the station oriented, six CMGs being located in each of the Kvant-1 and Kvant-2 modules. [109] When the attitude of the station needed to be changed, the gyrodynes were disengaged, thrusters (including those mounted directly to the modules, and the VDU thruster used for roll control mounted to the Sofora girder) were used to attain the new attitude and the CMGs were reengaged. [109] This was done fairly regularly depending on experimental needs; for instance, Earth or astronomical observations required that the instrument recording images be continuously aimed at the target, and so the station was oriented to make this possible. Conversely, materials processing experiments required the minimisation of movement on board the station, and so Mir would be oriented in a gravity gradient attitude for stability. Prior to the arrival of the modules containing these gyrodynes, the station's attitude was controlled using thrusters located on the core module alone, and, in an emergency, the thrusters on docked Soyuz spacecraft could be used to maintain the station's orientation.
Radio communications provided telemetry and scientific data links between Mir and the RKA Mission Control Centre (TsUP). Radio links were also used during rendezvous and docking procedures and for audio and video communication between crew members, flight controllers and family members. As a result, Mir was equipped with several communication systems used for different purposes. The station communicated directly with the ground via the Lira antenna mounted to the core module. The Lira antenna also had the capability to use the Luch data relay satellite system (which fell into disrepair in the 1990s) and the network of Soviet tracking ships deployed in various locations around the world (which also became unavailable in the 1990s). UHF radio was used by cosmonauts conducting EVAs. UHF was also employed by other spacecraft that docked to or undocked from the station, such as Soyuz, Progress, and the Space Shuttle, in order to receive commands from the TsUP and Mir crew members via the TORU system.
At Mir' s orbital altitude, the force of Earth's gravity was 88% of sea level gravity.
The drag resulting from the residual atmosphere;
Vibratory acceleration caused by mechanical systems and the crew on the station;
Orbital corrections by the on-board gyroscopes (which spun at 10,000 rpm, producing vibrations of 166.67 Hz [109]) or thrusters;
Tidal forces. Any parts of Mir not at exactly the same distance from Earth tended to follow separate orbits. As each point was physically part of the station, this was impossible, and so each component was subject to small accelerations from tidal forces;
The differences in orbital plane between different locations on the station.
Mir's environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) provided or controlled atmospheric pressure, fire detection, oxygen levels, waste management and water supply. The highest priority for the ECLSS was the station's atmosphere, but the system also collected, processed, and stored waste and water produced and used by the crew—a process that recycles fluid from the sink, toilet, and condensation from the air. The Elektron system generated oxygen. Bottled oxygen and solid fuel oxygen generation (SFOG) canisters, a system known as Vika, provided backup. Carbon dioxide was removed from the air by the Vozdukh system. Other byproducts of human metabolism, such as methane from the intestines and ammonia from sweat, were removed by activated charcoal filters. Similar systems are presently used on the ISS.
The atmosphere on Mir was similar to Earth's. [91] Normal air pressure on the station was 101.3 kPa (14.7 psi); the same as at sea level on Earth. An Earth-like atmosphere offers benefits for crew comfort, and is much safer than the alternative, a pure oxygen atmosphere, because of increased fire risk such as occurred with Apollo 1. [91]
Intercosmos ("ИнтерКосмос" Interkosmos) was a Soviet Union space exploration programme which allowed members from the military forces of allied Warsaw Pact countries to participate in manned and unmanned space exploration missions. Participation was also made available to governments of countries, such as France and India.
Only the last three of the programme's fourteen missions consisted of an expedition to Mir but none resulted in an extended stay in the station:
Muhammed Faris – EP-1 (1987) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Flag_of_Syria.svg/23px-Flag_of_Syria.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Flag_of_Syria.svg/35px-Flag_of_Syria.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Flag_of_Syria.svg/45px-Flag_of_Syria.svg.png 2x||h15|w23]] Syria [94]
Aleksandr Panayatov Aleksandrov – EP-2 (1988) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Flag_of_Bulgaria_(1971_%E2%80%93_1990).svg/23px-Flag_of_Bulgaria_(1971_%E2%80%93_1990).svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Flag_of_Bulgaria_%281971_%E2%80%93_1990%29.svg/35px-Flag_of_Bulgaria_%281971_%E2%80%93_1990%29.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Flag_of_Bulgaria_%281971_%E2%80%93_1990%29.svg/46px-Flag_of_Bulgaria_%281971_%E2%80%93_1990%29.svg.png 2x||h14|w23]] Bulgaria [112]
Abdul Ahad Mohmand – EP-3 (1988) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Flag_of_Afghanistan_(1987%E2%80%931992).svg/23px-Flag_of_Afghanistan_(1987%E2%80%931992).svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Flag_of_Afghanistan_%281987%E2%80%931992%29.svg/35px-Flag_of_Afghanistan_%281987%E2%80%931992%29.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Flag_of_Afghanistan_%281987%E2%80%931992%29.svg/46px-Flag_of_Afghanistan_%281987%E2%80%931992%29.svg.png 2x||h12|w23]] Afghanistan [16]
Various European astronauts visited Mir as part of several cooperative programmes: [27]
Jean-Loup Chrétien – Aragatz (1988) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/23px-Flag_of_France.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/35px-Flag_of_France.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/45px-Flag_of_France.svg.png 2x||h15|w23]] France
Helen Sharman – Project Juno (1991) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ae/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg/23px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ae/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg/35px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ae/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg/46px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg.png 2x||h12|w23]] UK
Franz Viehböck – Austromir '91 (1991) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Flag_of_Austria.svg/23px-Flag_of_Austria.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Flag_of_Austria.svg/35px-Flag_of_Austria.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Flag_of_Austria.svg/45px-Flag_of_Austria.svg.png 2x||h15|w23]] Austria
Klaus-Dietrich Flade – Mir '92 (1992) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/23px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/35px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/46px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png 2x||h14|w23]] Germany
Michel Tognini – Antarès (1992) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/23px-Flag_of_France.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/35px-Flag_of_France.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/45px-Flag_of_France.svg.png 2x||h15|w23]] France
Jean-Pierre Haigneré – Altair (1993) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/23px-Flag_of_France.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/35px-Flag_of_France.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/45px-Flag_of_France.svg.png 2x||h15|w23]] France
Ulf Merbold – Euromir '94 (1994) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/23px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/35px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/46px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png 2x||h14|w23]] Germany
Thomas Reiter – Euromir '95 (1995) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/23px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/35px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/46px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png 2x||h14|w23]] Germany
Claudie Haigneré – Cassiopée (1996) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/23px-Flag_of_France.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/35px-Flag_of_France.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/45px-Flag_of_France.svg.png 2x||h15|w23]] France
Reinhold Ewald – Mir '97 (1997) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/23px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/35px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Flag_of_Germany.svg/46px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png 2x||h14|w23]] Germany
Léopold Eyharts – Pégase (1998) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/23px-Flag_of_France.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/35px-Flag_of_France.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/45px-Flag_of_France.svg.png 2x||h15|w23]] France
Ivan Bella – Stefanik (1999) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Flag_of_Slovakia.svg/23px-Flag_of_Slovakia.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Flag_of_Slovakia.svg/35px-Flag_of_Slovakia.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Flag_of_Slovakia.svg/45px-Flag_of_Slovakia.svg.png 2x||h15|w23]] Slovakia
Chris Hadfield Canada visited Mir in November 1995 as a Mission Specialist 1 STS-74 [95]. He even played guitare there. [95]
In the early 1980s, NASA planned to launch a modular space station called Freedom as a counterpart to Mir, while the Soviets were planning to construct Mir-2 in the 1990s as a replacement for the station. Because of budget and design constraints, Freedom never progressed past mock-ups and minor component tests and, with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Space Race, the project was nearly cancelled entirely by the United States House of Representatives. The post-Soviet economic chaos in Russia also led to the cancellation of Mir-2, though only after its base block, DOS-8, had been constructed. Similar budgetary difficulties were faced by other nations with space station projects, which prompted the US government to negotiate with European states, Russia, Japan, and Canada in the early 1990s to begin a collaborative project. In June 1992, American president George H. W. Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed to cooperate on space exploration. The resulting Agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes called for a short joint space programme with one American astronaut deployed to the Russian space station Mir and two Russian cosmonauts deployed to a Space Shuttle.
In September 1993, US Vice President Al Gore, Jr., and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announced plans for a new space station, which eventually became the ISS. [46] They also agreed, in preparation of this new project, that the United States would be heavily involved in the Mir programme as part of an international project known as the Shuttle–Mir Programme. [54] The project, sometimes called "Phase One", was intended to allow the United States to learn from Russian experience in long-duration spaceflight and to foster a spirit of cooperation between the two nations and their space agencies, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos). The project prepared the way for further cooperative space ventures, specifically, "Phase Two" of the joint project, the construction of the ISS. The programme was announced in 1993; the first mission started in 1994, and the project continued until its scheduled completion in 1998. Eleven Space Shuttle missions, a joint Soyuz flight, and almost 1000 cumulative days in space for US astronauts occurred over the course of seven long-duration expeditions.
Toyohiro Akiyama – Kosmoreporter (1990) [[INLINE_IMAGE|https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9e/Flag_of_Japan.svg/23px-Flag_of_Japan.svg.png|//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9e/Flag_of_Japan.svg/35px-Flag_of_Japan.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9e/Flag_of_Japan.svg/45px-Flag_of_Japan.svg.png 2x||h15|w23]] Japan
A British con artist, Peter Rodney Llewellyn, almost visited Mir in 1999 on a private contract after promising US$ 100 million for the privilege. [95] [74]
Inside, the 130-tonne (140-short-ton) Mir resembled a cramped labyrinth, crowded with hoses, cables and scientific instruments—as well as articles of everyday life, such as photos, children's drawings, books and a guitar. It commonly housed three crew members, but was capable of supporting as many as six for up to a month. The station was designed to remain in orbit for around five years; it remained in orbit for fifteen. [95] As a result, NASA astronaut John Blaha reported that, with the exception of Priroda and Spektr , which were added late in the station's life, Mir did look used, which is to be expected given it had been lived in for ten to eleven years without being brought home and cleaned. [86]
The time zone used on board Mir was Moscow Time (UTC+03). The windows were covered during night hours to give the impression of darkness because the station experienced 16 sunrises and sunsets a day. A typical day for the crew began with a wake-up at 08:00, followed by two hours of personal hygiene and breakfast. Work was conducted from 10:00 until 13:00, followed by an hour of exercise and an hour's lunch break. Three more hours of work and another hour of exercise followed lunch, and the crews began preparing for their evening meal at about 19:00. The cosmonauts were free to do as they wished in the evening, and largely worked to their own pace during the day.
In their spare time, crews were able to catch up with work, observe the Earth below, respond to letters, drawings and other items brought from Earth (and give them an official stamp to show they had been aboard Mir), or make use of the station's ham radio.
NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger related how life on board Mir was structured and lived according to the detailed itineraries provided by ground control.
Astronaut Shannon Lucid, who set the record for longest stay in space by a woman while aboard Mir (surpassed by Sunita Williams 11 years later on the ISS), also commented about working aboard Mir saying "I think going to work on a daily basis on Mir is very similar to going to work on a daily basis on an outstation in Antarctica. The big difference with going to work here is the isolation, because you really are isolated. You don't have a lot of support from the ground. You really are on your own." [86]
The most significant adverse effects of long-term weightlessness are muscle atrophy and deterioration of the skeleton, or spaceflight osteopenia. Other significant effects include fluid redistribution, a slowing of the cardiovascular system, decreased production of red blood cells, balance disorders, and a weakening of the immune system. Lesser symptoms include loss of body mass, nasal congestion, sleep disturbance, excess flatulence, and puffiness of the face. These effects begin to reverse quickly upon return to the Earth.
To prevent some of these effects, the station was equipped with two treadmills (in the core module and Kvant-2) and a stationary bicycle (in the core module); each cosmonaut was to cycle the equivalent of 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) and run the equivalent of 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) per day. Cosmonauts used bungee cords to strap themselves to the treadmill. Researchers believe that exercise is a good countermeasure for the bone and muscle density loss that occurs in low-gravity situations. [111]
There were two space toilets (ASUs) on Mir, located in the core module and Kvant-2. They used a fan-driven suction system similar to the Space Shuttle Waste Collection System. The user is first fastened to the toilet seat, which was equipped with spring-loaded restraining bars to ensure a good seal. A lever operated a powerful fan and a suction hole slid open: the air stream carried the waste away. Solid waste was collected in individual bags which were stored in an aluminium container. Full containers were transferred to Progress spacecraft for disposal. Liquid waste was evacuated by a hose connected to the front of the toilet, with anatomically appropriate "urine funnel adapters" attached to the tube so both men and women could use the same toilet. Waste was collected and transferred to the Water Recovery System, where it was recycled back into drinking water, although this was usually used to produce oxygen via the Elektron system.
Mir featured a shower, the Bania, located in Kvant-2.
On a 1998 visit to Mir, bacteria and larger organisms were found to have proliferated in water globules formed from moisture that had condensed behind service panels.
The station provided two permanent crew quarters, the Kayutkas, phonebox-sized booths set towards the rear of the core module, each featuring a tethered sleeping bag, a fold-out desk, a porthole, and storage for personal effects.
Most of the food eaten by station crews was frozen, refrigerated or canned.
In the 1990s samples of extremophile moulds were taken from Mir. Ninety species of micro-organisms were found in 1990, four years after the station's launch. By the time of its decommission in 2001, the number of known different micro-organisms had grown to 140. As space stations get older, the problems with contamination get worse. [111] Moulds that develop aboard space stations can produce acids that degrade metal, glass and rubber. [111] The moulds in Mir were found growing behind panels and inside air-conditioning equipment. The moulds also caused a foul smell, which was often cited as visitors' strongest impressions. [47] Researchers in 2018 reported, after detecting the presence on the International Space Station (ISS) of five Enterobacter bugandensis bacterial strains, none pathogenic to humans, that microorganisms on ISS should be carefully monitored to continue assuring a medically healthy environment for the astronauts. [62] [[CITE|-1|http://doi.org/10.1186/s12866-018-1325-2]]
Some biologists were concerned about the mutant fungi being a major microbiological hazard for humans, and reaching Earth in the splashdown, after having been in an isolated environment for 15 years.
Station operations
Mir was visited by a total of 28 long-duration or "principal" crews, each of which was given a sequential expedition number formatted as EO-X.
Due to the pressure to launch the station on schedule, mission planners were left without Soyuz spacecraft or modules to launch to the station at first.
Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyov first docked with Mir on 15 March 1986. During their nearly 51-day stay on Mir, they brought the station online and checked its systems. They unloaded two Progress spacecraft launched after their arrival, Progress 25 and Progress 26. [10]
On 5 May 1986, they undocked from Mir for a day-long journey to Salyut 7.
The second expedition to Mir, EO-2, launched on Soyuz TM-2 on 5 February 1987. During their stay, the Kvant-1 module, launched on 30 March 1987, arrived. It was the first experimental version of a planned series of '37K' modules scheduled to be launched to Mir on Buran. Kvant-1 was originally planned to dock with Salyut 7; due to technical problems during its development, it was reassigned to Mir. The module carried the first set of six gyroscopes for attitude control. The module also carried instruments for X-ray and ultraviolet astrophysical observations.
The initial rendezvous of the Kvant-1 module with Mir on 5 April 1987 was troubled by the failure of the onboard control system.
The Soyuz TM-2 launch was the beginning of a string of 6 Soyuz launches and three long-duration crews between 5 February 1987 and 27 April 1989.
The launch of Soyuz TM-8 on 5 September 1989 marked the beginning of the longest human presence in space, until 23 October 2010, when this record was surpassed by the ISS. [98] It also marked the beginning of Mir's second expansion. The Kvant-2 and Kristall modules were now ready for launch. Alexander Viktorenko and Aleksandr Serebrov docked with Mir and brought the station out of its five-month hibernation. On 29 September the cosmonauts installed equipment in the docking system in preparation for the arrival of Kvant-2, the first of the 20 tonne add-on modules based on the TKS spacecraft from the Almaz programme. [69]
After a 40-day delay caused by faulty computer chips, Kvant-2 was launched on 26 November 1989.
Soyuz TM-9 launched EO-6 crew members Anatoly Solovyev and Aleksandr Balandin on 11 February 1990. While docking, the EO-5 crew noted that three thermal blankets on the ferry were loose, potentially creating problems on reentry, but it was decided that they would be manageable. Their stay on board Mir saw the addition of the Kristall module, launched 31 May 1990. The first docking attempt on 6 June was aborted due to an attitude control thruster failure. Kristall arrived at the front port on 10 June and was relocated to the lateral port opposite Kvant-2 the next day, restoring the equilibrium of the complex. Due to the delay in the docking of Kristall, EO-6 was extended by 10 days to permit the activation of the module's systems and to accommodate an EVA to repair the loose thermal blankets on Soyuz TM-9. [106]
Kristall contained furnaces for use in producing crystals under microgravity conditions (hence the choice of name for the module).
The EO-7 relief crew arrived aboard Soyuz TM-10 on 3 August 1990. The new crew arrived at Mir with quail for Kvant-2's cages, one of which laid an egg en route to the station. It was returned to Earth, along with 130 kg of experiment results and industrial products, in Soyuz TM-9. [106] Two more expeditions, EO-8 and EO-9, continued the work of their predecessors whilst tensions grew back on Earth.
The EO-10 crew, launched aboard Soyuz TM-13 on 2 October 1991, was the last crew to launch from the USSR and continued the occupation of Mir during the fall of the Soviet Union. The crew launched as Soviet citizens and returned to earth as Russians. The newly formed Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) was unable to finance the unlaunched Spektr and Priroda modules, instead putting them into storage and ending Mir's second expansion. [29] [42] [60]
The first manned mission flown from an independent Kazakhstan was Soyuz TM-14, launched on 17 March 1992, which carried the EO-11 crew to Mir, docking on 19 March before the departure of Soyuz TM-13. On 17 June, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and US President George H. W. Bush announced what would later become the Shuttle-Mir programme, a cooperative venture which proved useful to the cash-strapped Roskosmos (and led to the eventual completion and launch of Spektr and Priroda). EO-12 followed in July, alongside a brief visit by French astronaut Michel Tognini. The following crew, EO-13, began preparations for the Shuttle-Mir programme by flying to the station in a modified spacecraft, Soyuz TM-16 (launched on 26 January 1993), which was equipped with an APAS-89 docking system rather than the usual probe-and-drogue, enabling it to dock to Kristall and test the port which would later be used by US space shuttles. The spacecraft also enabled controllers to obtain data on the dynamics of docking a spacecraft to a space station off the station's longitudinal axis, in addition to data on the structural integrity of this configuration via a test called Rezonans conducted on 28 January. Soyuz TM-15, meanwhile, departed with the EO-12 crew on 1 February.
Throughout the period following the collapse of the USSR, crews on Mir experienced occasional reminders of the economic chaos occurring in Russia. The initial cancellation of Spektr and Priroda was the first such sign, followed by the reduction in communications as a result of the fleet of tracking ships being withdrawn from service by Ukraine. The new Ukrainian government also vastly raised the price of the Kurs docking systems, manufactured in Kiev – the Russians' attempts to reduce their dependence on Kurs would later lead to accidents during TORU tests in 1997. Various Progress spacecraft had parts of their cargoes missing, either because the consumable in question had been unavailable, or because the ground crews at Baikonur had looted them. The problems became particularly obvious during the launch of the EO-14 crew aboard Soyuz TM-17 in July; shortly before launch there was a black-out at the pad, and the power supply to the nearby city of Leninsk failed an hour after launch. Nevertheless, the spacecraft launched on time and arrived at the station two days later. All of Mir's ports were occupied, and so Soyuz TM-17 had to station-keep 200 metres away from the station for half an hour before docking while Progress M-18 vacated the core module's front port and departed.
The EO-13 crew departed on 22 July, and soon after Mir passed through the annual Perseid meteor shower, during which the station was hit by several particles. A spacewalk was conducted on 28 September to inspect the station's hull, but no serious damage was reported. Soyuz TM-18 arrived on 10 January 1994 carrying the EO-15 crew (including Valeri Polyakov, who was to remain on Mir for 14 months), and Soyuz TM-17 left on 14 January. The undocking was unusual in that the spacecraft was to pass along Kristall in order to obtain photographs of the APAS to assist in the training of space shuttle pilots. Due to an error in setting up the control system, the spacecraft struck the station a glancing blow during the manoeuvre, scratching the exterior of Kristall.
On 3 February 1994, Mir veteran Sergei Krikalev became the first Russian cosmonaut to launch on a US spacecraft, flying on Space Shuttle Discovery during STS-60. [73]
The launch of Soyuz TM-19, carrying the EO-16 crew, was delayed due to the unavailability of a payload fairing for the booster that was to carry it, but the spacecraft eventually left Earth on 1 July 1994 and docked two days later. They stayed only four months to allow the Soyuz schedule to line up with the planned space shuttle manifest, and so Polyakov greeted a second resident crew in October, prior to the undocking of Soyuz TM-19, when the EO-17 crew arrived in Soyuz TM-20.
The 3 February launch of Space Shuttle Discovery, flying STS-63, opened operations on Mir for 1995. Referred to as the "near-Mir" mission, the mission saw the first rendezvous of a space shuttle with Mir as the orbiter approached within 37 feet (11 m) of the station as a dress rehearsal for later docking missions and for equipment testing. [82] [104] Five weeks after Discovery's departure, the EO-18 crew, including the first US cosmonaut Norman Thagard, arrived in Soyuz TM-21. The EO-17 crew left a few days later, with Polyakov completing his record-breaking 437-day spaceflight. During EO-18, the Spektr science module (which served as living and working space for American astronauts) was launched aboard a Proton rocket and docked to the station, carrying research equipment from America and other nations. The expedition's crew returned to Earth aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis following the first Shuttle– Mir docking mission, STS-71. Atlantis, launched on 27 June 1995, successfully docked with Mir on 29 June becoming the first US spacecraft to dock with a Russian spacecraft since the ASTP in 1975. The orbiter delivered the EO-19 crew and returned the EO-18 crew to Earth. [82] [110] The EO-20 crew were launched on 3 September, followed in November by the arrival of the docking module during STS-74. [57] [82] [8]
The two-man EO-21 crew was launched on 21 February 1996 aboard Soyuz TM-23 and were soon joined by US crew member Shannon Lucid, who was brought to the station by Atlantis during STS-76. This mission saw the first joint US spacewalk on Mir take place deploying the Mir Environmental Effects Payload package on the docking module. Lucid became the first American to carry out a long-duration mission aboard Mir with her 188-day mission, which set the US single spaceflight record. During Lucid's time aboard Mir, Priroda , the station's final module, arrived as did French visitor Claudie Haigneré flying the Cassiopée mission. The flight aboard Soyuz TM-24 also delivered the EO-22 crew of Valery Korzun and Aleksandr Kaleri. [82] [17]
Lucid's stay aboard Mir ended with the flight of Atlantis on STS-79, which launched on 16 September. This, the fourth docking, saw John Blaha transferring onto Mir to take his place as resident US astronaut. His stay on the station improved operations in several areas, including transfer procedures for a docked space shuttle, "hand-over" procedures for long-duration American crew members and "ham"amateur radio communications, and also saw two spacewalks to reconfigure the station's power grid. Blaha spent four months with the EO-22 crew before returning to Earth aboard Atlantis on STS-81 in January 1997, at which point he was replaced by physician Jerry Linenger. [82] [26] [33] During his flight, Linenger became the first American to conduct a spacewalk from a foreign space station and the first to test the Russian-built Orlan-M spacesuit alongside Russian cosmonaut Vasili Tsibliyev, flying EO-23. All three crew members of EO-23 performed a "fly-around" in Soyuz TM-25 spacecraft. Linenger and his Russian crewmates Vasili Tsibliyev and Aleksandr Lazutkin faced several difficulties during the mission, including the most severe fire aboard an orbiting spacecraft (caused by a malfunctioning Vika), failures of various systems, a near collision with Progress M-33 during a long-distance TORU test and a total loss of station electrical power. The power failure also caused a loss of attitude control, which led to an uncontrolled "tumble" through space. [82]
Linenger was succeeded by Anglo-American astronaut Michael Foale, carried up by Atlantis on STS-84, alongside Russian mission specialist Elena Kondakova. Foale's increment proceeded fairly normally until 25 June when during the second test of the Progress manual docking system, TORU, Progress M-34 collided with solar arrays on the Spektr module and crashed into the module's outer shell, puncturing the module and causing depressurisation on the station. Only quick actions on the part of the crew, cutting cables leading to the module and closing Spektr's hatch, prevented the crews having to abandon the station in Soyuz TM-25. Their efforts stabilised the station's air pressure, whilst the pressure in Spektr, containing many of Foale's experiments and personal effects, dropped to a vacuum. [82] In an effort to restore some of the power and systems lost following the isolation of Spektr and to attempt to locate the leak, EO-24 commander Anatoly Solovyev and flight engineer Pavel Vinogradov carried out a risky salvage operation later in the flight, entering the empty module during a so-called "intra-vehicular activity" or "IVA" spacewalk and inspecting the condition of hardware and running cables through a special hatch from Spektr's systems to the rest of the station. Following these first investigations, Foale and Solovyev conducted a 6-hour EVA outside Spektr to inspect the damage. [82]
After these incidents, the US Congress and NASA considered whether to abandon the programme out of concern for the astronauts' safety, but NASA administrator Daniel Goldin decided to continue. The next flight to Mir, STS-86, carried David Wolf aboard Atlantis. During the orbiter's stay, Titov and Parazynski conducted a spacewalk to affix a cap to the docking module for a future attempt by crew members to seal the leak in Spektr' s hull. [82] [41] Wolf spent 119 days aboard Mir with the EO-24 crew and was replaced during STS-89 with Andy Thomas, who carried out the last US expedition on Mir. [82] [50] The EO-25 crew arrived in Soyuz TM-27 in January 1998 before Thomas returned to Earth on the final Shuttle– Mir mission, STS-91. [82] [59]
Following the 8 June 1998 departure of Discovery, the EO-25 crew of Budarin and Musabayev remained on Mir, completing materials experiments and compiling a station inventory. On 2 July, Roskosmos director Yuri Koptev announced that, due to a lack of funding to keep Mir active, the station would be deorbited in June 1999. The EO-26 crew of Gennady Padalka and Sergei Avdeyev arrived on 15 August in Soyuz TM-28, alongside physicist Yuri Baturin, who departed with the EO-25 crew on 25 August in Soyuz TM-27. The crew carried out two spacewalks, one inside Spektr to reseat some power cables and another outside to set up experiments delivered by Progress M-40, which also carried a large amount of propellant to begin alterations to Mir' s orbit in preparation for the station's decommissioning. 20 November 1998 saw the launch of Zarya , the first module of the ISS, but delays to the new station's service module Zvezda had led to calls for Mir to be kept in orbit past 1999. Roscosmos confirmed that it would not fund Mir past the set deorbit date.
The crew of EO-27, Viktor Afanasyev and Jean-Pierre Haigneré, arrived in Soyuz TM-29 on 22 February 1999 alongside Ivan Bella, who returned to Earth with Padalka in Soyuz TM-28. The crew carried out three EVAs to retrieve experiments and deploy a prototype communications antenna on Sofora. On 1 June it was announced that the deorbit of the station would be delayed by six months to allow time to seek alternative funding to keep the station operating. The rest of the expedition was spent preparing the station for its deorbit; a special analog computer was installed and each of the modules, starting with the docking module, was mothballed in turn and sealed off. The crew loaded their results into Soyuz TM-29 and departed Mir on 28 August 1999, ending a run of continuous occupation, which had lasted for eight days short of ten years. The station's gyrodines and main computer were shut down on 7 September, leaving Progress M-42 to control Mir and refine the station's orbital decay rate.
Near the end of its life, there were plans for private interests to purchase Mir, possibly for use as the first orbital television / movie studio. The privately funded Soyuz TM-30 mission by MirCorp, launched on 4 April 2000, carried two crew members, Sergei Zalyotin and Aleksandr Kaleri, to the station for two months to do repair work with the hope of proving that the station could be made safe. This was to be the last manned mission to Mir —while Russia was optimistic about Mir's future, its commitments to the ISS project left no funding to support the ageing station. [76]
Mir' s deorbit was carried out in three stages.
Mir was primarily supported by the Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft and had two ports available for docking them. Initially, the fore and aft ports of the core module could be used for dockings, but following the permanent berthing of Kvant-1 to the aft port in 1987, the rear port of the new module took on this role from the core module's aft port. Each port was equipped with the plumbing required for Progress cargo ferries to replace the station's fluids and also the guidance systems needed to guide the spacecraft for docking. Two such systems were used on Mir; the rear ports of both the core module and Kvant-1 were equipped with both the Igla and Kurs systems, whilst the core module's forward port featured only the newer Kurs.
Soyuz spacecraft provided manned access to and from the station allowing for crew rotations and cargo return, and also functioned as a lifeboat for the station, allowing for a relatively quick return to Earth in the event of an emergency.
The unmanned Progress cargo vehicles were only used to resupply the station, carrying a variety of cargoes including water, fuel, food and experimental equipment.
In addition to the routine Soyuz and Progress flights, it was anticipated that Mir would also be the destination for flights by the Soviet Buran space shuttle, which was intended to deliver extra modules (based on the same "37K"bus as Kvant-1) and provide a much improved cargo return service to the station. Kristall carried two Androgynous Peripheral Attach System (APAS-89) docking ports designed to be compatible with the shuttle. One port was to be used for Buran; the other for the planned Pulsar X-2 telescope, also to be delivered by Buran. [12] The cancellation of the Buran programme meant these capabilities were not realised until the 1990s when the ports were used instead by US Space Shuttles as part of the Shuttle-Mir programme (after testing by the specially modified Soyuz TM-16 in 1993). Initially, visiting Space Shuttle orbiters docked directly to Kristall, but this required the relocation of the module to ensure sufficient distance between the shuttle and Mir' s solar arrays. To eliminate the need to move the module and retract solar arrays for clearance issues, a Mir Docking Module was later added to the end of Kristall. [39] The shuttles provided crew rotation of the American astronauts on station and carried cargo to and from the station, performing some of the largest transfers of cargo of the time. With a space shuttle docked to Mir, the temporary enlargements of living and working areas amounted to a complex that was the largest spacecraft in history at that time, with a combined mass of 250 tonnes (280 short tons).
Mir and its resupply missions were controlled from the Russian Mission control center (Russian: Центр управления полётами) in Korolyov, near the RKK Energia plant. Referred to by its acronym ЦУП ("TsUP"), or simply as 'Moscow', the facility could process data from up to ten spacecraft in three separate control rooms, although each control room was dedicated to a single programme; one to Mir; one to Soyuz; and one to the Soviet space shuttle Buran (which was later converted for use with the ISS). [63] [93] The facility is now used to control the Russian Orbital Segment of the ISS. [63] The flight control team were assigned roles similar to the system used by NASA at their mission control centre in Houston, including: [93]
The Flight Director, who provided policy guidance and communicated with the mission management team;
The Flight Shift Director, who was responsible for real-time decisions within a set of flight rules;
The Mission Deputy Shift Manager (MDSM) for the MCC was responsible for the control room's consoles, computers and peripherals;
The MDSM for Ground Control was responsible for communications;
The MDSM for Crew Training was similar to NASA's 'capcom,' or capsule communicator; usually someone who had served as the Mir crew's lead trainer.
Three command and control modules were constructed for the Mir program.
In the later years of the programme, particularly during the Shuttle-Mir programme, Mir suffered from various systems failures.
Various breakdowns of the Elektron oxygen-generating system were a concern; they led crews to become increasingly reliant on the backup Vika solid-fuel oxygen generator (SFOG) systems, which led to a fire during the handover between EO-22 and EO-23. (see also ISS ECLSS)
Several accidents occurred which threatened the station's safety, such as the glancing collision between Kristall and Soyuz TM-17 during proximity operations in January 1994. The three most alarming incidents occurred during EO-23. The first was on 23 February 1997 during the handover period from EO-22 to EO-23, when a malfunction occurred in the backup Vika system, a chemical oxygen generator later known as solid-fuel oxygen generator (SFOG). The Vika malfunction led to a fire which burned for around 90 seconds (according to official sources at the TsUP; astronaut Jerry Linenger insists the fire burned for around 14 minutes), and produced large amounts of toxic smoke that filled the station for around 45 minutes. This forced the crew to don respirators, but some of the respirator masks initially worn were broken. Some of the fire extinguishers mounted on the walls of the newer modules were immovable.
The other two accidents concerned testing of the station's TORU manual docking system to manually dock Progress M-33 and Progress M-34. The tests were to gauge the performance of long-distance docking and the feasibility of removal of the expensive Kurs automatic docking system from Progress spacecraft. Due to malfunctioning equipment, both tests failed, with Progress M-33 narrowly missing the station and Progress M-34 striking Spektr and puncturing the module, causing the station to depressurise and leading to Spektr being permanently sealed off. This in turn led to a power crisis aboard Mir as the module's solar arrays produced a large proportion of the station's electrical supply, causing the station to power down and begin to drift, requiring weeks of work to rectify before work could continue as normal.
Without the protection of the Earth's atmosphere, cosmonauts were exposed to higher levels of radiation from a steady flux of cosmic rays and trapped protons from the South Atlantic Anomaly. The station's crews were exposed to an absorbed dose of about 5.2 cGy over the course of a 115-day expedition, producing an equivalent dose of 14.75 cSv, or 1133 µSv per day. [20] [45] This daily dose is approximately that received from natural background radiation on Earth in two years. [56] The radiation environment of the station was not uniform; closer proximity to the station's hull led to an increased radiation dose, and the strength of radiation shielding varied between modules; Kvant-2's being better than the core module, for instance. [71]
The increased radiation levels pose a higher risk of crews developing cancer, and can cause damage to the chromosomes of lymphocytes. These cells are central to the immune system and so any damage to them could contribute to the lowered immunity experienced by cosmonauts. Over time, lowered immunity results in the spread of infection between crew members, especially in such confined areas. Radiation has also been linked to a higher incidence of cataracts in cosmonauts. Protective shielding and protective drugs may lower the risks to an acceptable level, but data is scarce and longer-term exposure will result in greater risks.
At the low altitudes at which Mir orbited there is a variety of space debris, consisting of everything from entire spent rocket stages and defunct satellites, to explosion fragments, paint flakes, slag from solid rocket motors, [87] coolant released by RORSAT nuclear powered satellites, small needles, and many other objects. These objects, in addition to natural micrometeoroids, [96] posed a threat to the station as they could puncture pressurised modules and cause damage to other parts of the station, such as the solar arrays. [108] Micrometeoroids also posed a risk to spacewalking cosmonauts, as such objects could puncture their spacesuits, causing them to depressurise. [9] Meteor showers in particular posed a risk, and, during such storms, the crews slept in their Soyuz ferries to facilitate an emergency evacuation should Mir be damaged.
In the movie Contact , S. R. Hadden, an American billionaire industrialist, moves onto Mir to help relieve the pain of his terminal cancer.
Mission to Mir , a documentary filmed in the IMAX format, was released in 1997.
Mir, modified to have artificial gravity by rotating on itself, appears in the 1998 film Armageddon , as it is involved in a world-saving mission with two second generation Space Shuttle orbiters, the X-71s. It is also the setting of the theme park attraction Armageddon – Les Effets Speciaux and the subject for the 1998 Armageddon-themed Revell / Monogram model kit "Russian Space Center".
The station, with Soyuz spacecraft docked, was used for the exterior views of the "MRSA international space station" in the Henry Danger special episodes "Space Invaders, Part 1" and "Space Invaders, Part 2"


text:
The AKAs
Hometown: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Current Label: Paper + Plastick Records Websites: Official Website
Band Members: Chachi Darin on Drums
Nick Carlisi on Guitar
Josie Outlaw on Keyboards
Mike Ski on Vocals
Michael Camino on Bass
The AKAs Bio:
Since 2003, the Philadelphia five-some known also as The A.K.A.s have been bringing their Neo-Proto-Punk mission to the world. Equal parts energetic and enigmatic, the band has continued to make their mark by passionately raising awareness and raising roofs through their fun and anthem-riddled tunes. With the debut album "White Doves & Smoking Guns" (Fueled by Ramen Records), the band showcased their unique ability to defy genres with a signature blend of riff-soaked rock with vintage organ accompaniment. Both fist-pumping and hip-swinging, the music has been described as "Dancehall Fight Music."
Fronted by Mike Ski of hardcore icons Brothers Keeper, the vocals are belted out in sweat-soaked abandon. With charismatic displays drawn from Iggy Pop's raw animal nature and Jello Biafra's cynical quips, the band happily walks the line between punk politics and rock debauchery. On their follow-up release "Everybody Make Some Noise" on Metropolis Records, The A.K.A.s crush the line between The Clash, The MC5, and the B-52's, with garage inspired guitars, pulse-driving drums and a dance-tainted touch of synths and organs. All the while, the band has toured relentlessly. With a live show honed from art gallery floors and basements to clubs and festival stages, the band has had the opportunity to share the stage with a wide range of characters; including The Bouncing Souls, Anti-Flag, and Dillinger Four,TSOL,The Dwarves, Streetlight Manifesto and Mindless Self-Indulgence. With an incessant work ethic, they have also become a staple part of the Vans Warped and "Rock Against Bush" Tours. Playing over 600 shows, The A.K.A.s have made their well-known slogan "THE A.K.A.s (Are Everywhere) an undisputed reality.
More On: Punk, The AKAs, Paper + Plastick Records
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The AKAs Profiles: Dying Scene

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Delhi air quality further deteriorates, AQI slips to 368
New Delhi [India], November 26 (ANI): The overall Air Quality Index (AQI) in the national capital on Friday morning slipped to 368 in the 'very poor' category, according to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR).
The PM 10 was recorded at 376 in the 'very poor' category and PM 2.5 was recorded at 224 in the 'very poor' category at 7:50 am.
Gurugram and Noida recorded AQI of 350 and 463 respectively in the "very poor" and "severe" categories.
"The AQI today indicates 'Very Poor' category. Local surface winds are relatively low for the next 3 days that reduces the dispersion of pollutants leading to the deterioration of air quality but within the 'upper end of very poor' category for the next three days," SAFAR said in a bulletin.
It further said that on November 29 local surface winds are likely to increase resulting in improvement of air quality but remains within the 'Very Poor' category.
"Local emissions and weather (Mixing layer height and wind speed) are likely to be the dominant factors controlling air quality. Effective fire count is 219 and its per cent share in Delhi's PM2.5 is 6 per cent," it added.
As per the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Delhi today recorded a minimum temperature of 11 degrees Celsius, while the maximum temperature recorded was 28 degrees Celsius.
An AQI between zero and 50 is considered 'good', 51 and 100 'satisfactory', 101 and 200 'moderate', 201 and 300 'poor', 301 and 400 'very poor', and 401 and 500 'severe'.
Meanwhile, the Delhi government has once again decided to reimpose a ban on construction and demolition activities following Supreme Court's directions.
In view of an improvement in the air quality, the ban on construction and demolition activities was lifted on November 22.
The physical classes in schools, colleges and other educational institutions are scheduled to resume from Monday.
The ban on the entry of trucks, barring those engaged in essential services, will continue till December 3. (ANI)


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In June we were delighted to shoot once again with one of America's favorite actors, Mr. William Devane, for the 6th year of our popular campaign for leading gold and silver company Rosland Capital.
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Traditional U.S. ads in second-quarter 2016 advertising rose 2.5%, slowing from the 4.3% gains registered in both 4Q 2015 and 1Q 2016, says MoffettNathanson Research. Still, total advertising thanks to digital media was up 11.5% in the second quarter, after a 10.8% gain in the first quarter. The researcher predicts that by the end of 2016, overall U.S. advertising is expected to climb 8.1% to $191.2 billion for the year. Another industry analyst, London-based advertising researcher Warc, is also bullish on ad spending and says the U.S. ad spend will rise 5.8% to a record high of $178 billion – double the amount projected for the overall U.S. economy. Warc says U.S. TV spending will rise 6.6% to $68 billion this year, due to increased spending on the Rio Olympics and the U.S. presidential election. Warc adds that U.S. digital media spending will grow at more than double the rate of TV – 13.7%. Overall, digital media will achieve near the same dollar value of the TV ad market this year – and is predicted to rise above TV next year. MoffettNathanson says TV remains the leader in U.S. advertising. Improving TV spending in the first half of the year is now estimated to mean a rise of 6.6% to $80.3 billion. Faster-growing Internet/digital advertising spending will climb 21% to $72 billion. Radio will add 2% to $17.7 billion, with newspapers sinking 8% to $16.9 billion; consumer magazines will rise 2% to $12.5 billion; and outdoor will inch up 1% to $7.4 billion. (Read More on Response Magazine)
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You've finished your CDL driving school course in Washington. You've landed your first trucking job, but want to get more.
We'd never advise shifting jobs until you have another one lined up. While you're working to line up a new position, however, there are ways to get more experience as a trucker. Keep these in mind, as well as all the job placement advice you received from your Washington State truck driving school.
As with all occupations, demonstrating that you have the right attitude to succeed will end up paying off--sometimes not right away, of course. Because the payoff does not come immediately, a central part of your professional mindset is patience.
Patience is not only a quality--it's a skill. You will exercise patience while waiting for your truck to be loaded. Or unloaded. Or at toll booths. Or in traffic. Patience is part of the job, and people will notice it.
Another key part of the professional mindset is planning. Don't wait until the last minute for things. Be ready for unusual as well as usual delays--and be on time for appointments. Leaving a day early is not unreasonable--if life (as in family) allows it.
Signal when you're going to change lanes--whether or not the back of the trailer has the safety contact phone number for your carrier. Let people know that you are about to do something with your heavy vehicle. Letting people know what you're going to do will make life easier for everyone.
Use your headlights in bad weather--even though you're driving a big vehicle, you want to be more visible. You know that not every vehicle will do that--but you are not every vehicle. Do what you wish everyone else would do.
Your seat belt is your friend. Not only do you want to avoid tickets for driving without a seat belt on, you want to avoid injury or death.
You may end up interviewing with a number of companies over your first few years of driving. The company you start with in all likelihood not the company you will be with in 12, 18, or 24 months.
Companies have reputations just like drivers, and those reputations are based on how they do business. Some companies may have a reputation for efficiency and customer service. That company will not be as interested in your family and home time needs and more interested in a driver willing to take the longer trips. If this company is right for you, you should prepare around those expectations, and demonstrate that you plan ahead, work with efficiency, and can be relied on to get the job done.
Another company may have been started by truckers tired of being abused--they want to have hometime, and their truckers to have home time, also. You will stress your values of family and commitment--and hard work to them. You may not need to stress the willingness to be on the road for 3-5 weeks at a time.
Everyone. Get your name out there.
Make sure everything is spelled correctly--have someone proofread for you whether you're a good or bad speller.
Be consistent. If you use bullet points, stick with bullets.
Until you have a lot of experience, keep it to one page.
Highlight the skills you want to show off.
Your truck driving school may help you with job placement, not only as you finish your training, but in the years after. Keep in touch with them as your career develops, even while you have steady work with one company. You don't know what will happen over the next 6 - 12 months, and you should have them ready to help you out.
Make sure your application and resume are available to companies through an online placement service. Most are free to use, and can provide you with access to many companies nationwide. Remember, though, that many truckers are using these sites--so don't rely only on them.
At truck stops, get trucking magazines. You will probably be able to find more information about companies, including their operating lanes. You'll be able to see which companies operate close to home.
In your first year, of course, you will have to be flexible about home-time. Drivers with more experience get the routes allowing them more time at home--that's a fact of life. One of your resources, therefore, is your resilience at dealing with separation from home.
Visit manufacturers and distribution centers near your home. If they have company trucks, speak with their HR department. Bring in your business card and resume, and don't be afraid to give cards to anyone you speak to on the way to the HR office. You are creating your own presence.
Ask around for companies hiring inexperienced drivers. There are some anywhere. Make sure you've kept a list of all the companies your driving school works with.
The key for new truck drivers is to work with their truck driving school for placement assistance. They are the best bet in your area to be connected with a first job. Take advantage of a service you've paid for--their help.
But after that, be open and flexible. Take the "bad routes", and be willing to have longer trips away from home--you are building your reputation as a good, solid, reliable driver.
A Letter of Good Conduct from your local or state police.
Pass the Canadian Firearms Safety Course (CFSC).
Pass the Canadian Restricted Firearms Safety Course (CRFSC).
The process from start to finish seems to take around 3 months.
The regulations for hours of service for truckers in Canada are different than in the US. You will need to be aware of both sets of regulations to drive safely and legally in Canada. Different rules apply north of latitude 60° North (in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut).
No more than 13 hours of driving in a day, and no driving after 14 hours of on-duty time in a day.
The driver must have an off-duty period of 8 consecutive hours before driving again, either after the 13 hour driving-day or the 14 hour on-duty time.
No more than 16 hours may pass between the end of one 8-hour off-duty time and the beginning of the next 8-hour off-duty time.
Drivers must take at least 10 hours of off-duty time during a day, include the consecutive 8 hour period.
Other daily off-duty time may be taken in blocks of 30 minutes, and at least 2 hours may not form part of the 8-hour period required.
Up to 2 hours of daily off-duty time may be deferred to the following day, provided at least 20 hours are taken over the two days, the time is not part of the mandatory 8-hour periods, the total driving time is not 26 hours over two days, and the deferral is noted in the log.
There are some detailed instructions for splitting time in a truck with a sleeper berth or when part of a team of drivers--see sections 18 and 19.
In Canada, carriers are allowed to select one of two driving cycles. Work with your carrier to determine the best one for you and your shipment. Both cycles require 24 consecutive hours of off-duty time every 14 days, subject to resetting the cycle.
Cycle 1--the driver may be on duty no more than 70 hours during a period of 7 days.
Cycle 2--the driver may be on duty no more than 120 hours during a period of 14 days, and no more than 70 hours of on-duty time without 24 consecutive hours off.
Resetting Cycle 1--the driver may end a cycle with 36 consecutive hours of off-duty time.
Resetting Cycle 2--the driver may end a cycle with at least 72 consecutive hours of off-duty time.
Driving in Canada is pretty much like driving in the US. Apply all the skills and knowledge you learned at your CDL driving school in Washington, and you'll be fine.
This guide should help you brush-up on what you need to know to make sure you drive successfully on Canadian highways. Being open to crossing the border will enhance your career and your income.


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Home > Michael O'Mara Books > Autobiography & Memoir > Chutzpah & Chutzpah
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Chutzpah & Chutzpah
Richard Myers, Simon Goode and Nick Darke
Categories: Autobiography & Memoir
This is the story of the rise and rise of advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi as it has never been told before.
With over 200 astonishing first-hand accounts from the people who were really there, this is a fascinating insight into a remarkable success story and an unorthodox business.
Responsible for generating some of the most memorable and groundbreaking advertising of the last fifty years, Saatchi & Saatchi became infamous in their own right. Made up of maverick thinkers and ingenious talent, they broke rules and won big pitches, attracting the business of some of the world's most successful companies.
For the first time, the extraordinary story of Saatchi & Saatchi's meteoric rise is told by those instrumental in its success – creatives, account handlers, PAs and directors – each with their own fascinating stories to tell.
At Liberty
Ed Burstell
Elstree Studios
Morris Bright and Paul Burton


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Phoenix News Station Reports on Illuminati
PHOENIX — A secret society called the Illuminati has been a topic of conspiracy theorists for decades.
The Illuminati do exist, said attorney Jonathan Levy.
At the center of a murder mystery is a man by the name of Paul Marcinkus, who lived right here in the Valley. Marcinkus was once a Papal guard, Archbishop and President of the Vatican Bank, which is how he knew fellow Italian banker Roberto Calvir.
"They very well were the Illuminati, at least in Italy — powerful people behind the scenes, operating in secrecy," said Levy, who has been in a legal battle with the Vatican for years.
In 1982, Calvi was found hanged from the Blackfriar's bridge in London. It was staged to look like a suicide. Calvi was connected to the disappearance of more than $1.2 billion, much of it belonging to the Vatican and the Illuminati. Eventually, five people were charged with his death in Rome.
Marcinkus was also indicted for Calvis murder, but he never had to answer for it. He eluded questioning with help from the Vatican, and he retired here to Sun City with full diplomatic immunity granted by the church, which means all attempts to extradite him were denied. He never spoke to reporters, investigators or members of his congregation at St. Clement of Rome in Sun City.
"I thought it was kind of tasteless the way people would come up to him in the sacristy and say, 'What really happened back then?'" said Paul Yoder, the church's choir instructor. "And he'd just kind of smile and change the subject."
The Phoenix Archdiocese refused to speak to 5 Investigates about Marcinkus; however, it did release a statement:
"Those priests who knew him in his retirement are not going to go on camera and speculate about rumor and innuendo that they know nothing about."
And so the mystery remains unsolved.
"I think (Marcinkus) was a true foot soldier of the church," Yoder said. "We stand a much better chance of finding out about the Kennedy assassination." (CBS, Phoenix, Ch. 5, 5.14.2009) http://www.infowars.com/phoenix-news-station-reports-on-illuminati


WIT Arena is taking on Operation transformation with one big twist - the twist being the leaders will be some of our very own gym instructors!
The programme is an 8 week programme and it is FREE for WIT Arena members.
The date for your diary is Monday 29th January where our launch night will take place. An initial weigh in will take place on the night and participants will be assigned to one of our leaders.
Stay Tuned to our Facebook page for more details about our Information Evening where further details will be revealed.
Call us on 051 834 444 or email witarena@wit.ie to register for this programme.
Spaces will be reserved for the first 30 members so book now and make the change!
Let's make the change together to a healthier life. Start your Fitness Journey this year!


Where to stay around Broadmeadows Park?
Our 2019 accommodation listings offer a large selection of 1,845 holiday lettings near Broadmeadows Park. From 352 Houses to 21 Bungalows, find the best place to stay with your family and friends to discover Broadmeadows Park area.
Can I rent Houses near Broadmeadows Park?
Can I find a holiday accommodation with pool near Broadmeadows Park?
Yes, you can select your preferred holiday accommodation with pool among our 510 holiday rentals with pool available near Broadmeadows Park. Please use our search bar to access the selection of self catering accommodations available.
Can I book a holiday accommodation directly online or instantly near Broadmeadows Park?
Yes, HomeAway offers a selection of 1,845 holiday homes to book directly online and 792 with instant booking available near Broadmeadows Park. Don't wait, have a look at our self catering accommodations via our search bar and be ready for your next trip near Broadmeadows Park!


Dutchess Tourism does not share any information with other firms. By opting in, you are giving us permission to send you our Dutchess Tourism newsletters, which are full of useful information on upcoming events, attractions, and things to do in Dutchess County. You may also receive occasional updates on Dutchess County events and reminders. Any information we obtain from you will be used to better serve you and to provide you with information that you are most interested in.


If you find that your computer is responding slow, this guide will show you how to access and remove the RAM.
Remove the single captive screw on the back panel with your Phillips #1 screwdriver.
Using your fingers, spread the spring tabs holding the top stick of RAM in place.
Once the tabs are spread apart, the stick of RAM will pop up.
Remove the first stick of RAM by pulling out along the same angle the RAM stick springs up.
Repeat the same procedure to remove the second stick of RAM.


It's a galactic party time when you wear these vintage 14k gold stardust disco ball earrings. Very well made, they are minimalist but not boring. Comfortable to wear, they measure 1" long including the custom lever back closure.
Each ball drop (New Year's Eve comes to mind) measures 5/16" in diameter. The drop is finished with a sparkly surface and diamond cut stars.
They are marked 14k, JCM and were carefully tested. The overall approximate weight is 1.6 grams for the pair. Designed by Jacmel Mauritius of Jacmel, founded in 1977.
In excellent condition, these were never worn. They are estimated to date from the early 1990's.


Located in the preferred Ewa Tower, high floor with beautiful views of the ocean, Ala Moana Beach Park and Magic Island. Ideally situated across the street from Ala Moana Shopping Center, restaurants, banks, supermarkets and near the bus line.
Based on information from the Multiple Listing Service of HiCentral MLS, Ltd.Listings last updated on 04-23-2019. Copyright 2019 by HiCentral Mls, Ltd. Listing courtesy of Clayton Properties. Some active listings appearing on this site may be listed by other REALTORS®. If you are interested in those active listings, our company may represent you as the buyer's agent. If the active listing you are interested in is our company's active listing, you may speak to one of our agents regarding your options for representation. Hawaii House Inc. is a real estate brokerage firm licensed to conduct business in the State of Hawaii. Information deemed reliable, but not guaranteed.
1600 Ala Moana Blvd unit #2106 is a condo in the Yacht Harbor Towers building located in Honolulu, HI. This is a 1 bed, 1 bath condo in the Ala Moana neighborhood. This apartment has 966 sqft interior space with Coastline, Marina/Canal, Ocean, Sunset views. Unit #2106 is located on floor number 21 and the property condition is average. The neighborhood is Ala Moana and the full address is 1600 Ala Moana Blvd unit #2106, Honolulu, HI, 96815.


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Q: Convert hex string to color I am passing a hex value in my QueryString. I'd like to convert that to a color to use the ForeColor in a cell in a grid view. Tried both System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromHtml() and System.Drawing.Color.FromArgb() with no luck.
My QueryString is urlencoded so the part that matters looks like:
QueryString...&color=%23AA4643

Below is how I have tried .FromArg:
string sColor = Request.QueryString["color"]; // sColor is now #AA4643
Int32 iColorInt = Convert.ToInt32(sColor,16); //Get error message - Could not find any recognizable digits
Color curveColor = System.Drawing.Color.FromArgb(iColorInt); //Never makes it here

And here is how I have tried .FromHtml:
string sColor = Request.QueryString["color"];
System.Drawing.Color myColor = new System.Drawing.Color();
myColor = System.Drawing.ColorTranslator.FromHtml(sColor);

In this case myColor gets set to - myColor = "{Name=ffaa4643, ARGB=(255, 170, 70, 67)}"
But when I go to use it I get an error:

Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.
  Parameter name: index

Any and all help greatly appreciated

A: Try this:
string sColor = Request.QueryString["color"]; // sColor is now #AA4643
Int32 iColorInt = Convert.ToInt32(sColor.Substring(1),16);
Color curveColor = System.Drawing.Color.FromArgb(iColorInt);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The National Liberal Party (PNL, in opposition) launches on Thursday, at Parliament Palace, its candidates for the Euro-parliamentary election, due on June 7.
In the opening of the event, first vice-president of the National Liberal Party Ludovic Orban said that the Liberals will have to convey to the Romanian society, in this electoral campaign, its European values and principles. The PNL campaign will not be only a campaign convincing the Romanians to vote with the PNL.
It is a campaign in which the PNL will demonstrate that it is a European party, by vocation, which has always directed Romania to the EU. The Europe of today is based on individual freedom and by the respect of some rights and of the chance of everybody to succeed in life, as well as by solidarity, not imposed but made aware by every European citizen.
We have to convey these European ideas in a Romanian society which is governed by a political class, for the largest part non-European, a political class with two ruling parties, who know to lie, to threaten, and to take what they do not deserve, " Orban said.
Ludovic Orban voiced conviction that PNL "will do its best in this electoral campaign and will have the capacity to demonstrate Romanians that the policy it is doing is one of responsibility and that has as an objective to bring Romania to the level of the European developed states.


In his recent book, "Israel's History And The history Of Israel," author Mario Liverani casts weighty personal doubt upon the Biblical picture of the reign of Solomon, and especially of early Israel's maritime trade and colonization.
I am not sure what he thinks a fairy tale "literary form" exactly is, but the Biblical text never begins any chapter with the "once upon a time" designation of so many fairy tales, nor is there any mention of leprechauns, gnomes or elves! Nor does Scripture give any indication that the text is relating anything other than literal, factual, recorded history.
Yet, for centuries critics have ridiculed the historical portions of Scripture as the stuff of myth and legend. Just as the city of Troy and the Trojan War were widely considered to be figments of Homer's vivid imagination until rediscovered a century and a half ago, so too the great ancient cities of Nineveh and Babylon were regarded as figments of the Biblical writer's imagination until archaeologists rediscovered them in the mid-nineteenth century. It may seem counterintuitive, but historians often exhibit the most rabid agnosticism concerning historical subjects, and even more so when it involves Scripture.
One of the passages Dr. Liverani questions reads as follows: "And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon." (1 Kings 9:26-28) Historians have no disagreement with the idea of Phoenician ships trading and colonizing the coasts of Africa and Europe, yet many seem horrified to think of the presence of an Israelite on board one of those ships!
Some scholars have no problem accepting the Biblical account of ancient Israel's commercial sea traffic. For one recent example, Marvin Alan Sweeney ("I & II Kings," 2007) believes that this sea trade by Israel and Phoenicia "enables them both to become rich." (p.146) Dr. Sweeney pointed out that Israel needed money to pay Phoenicia for expensive labor and materials—lumber, gold, and silver—for the construction of Solomon's Temple. Solomon attempted to pay for this work by giving "twenty cities" in Galilee, but Phoenician king Hiram called them "kabul," a Semitic term meaning "like nothing," that is, worthless! (1 Ki. 9:11, 13) Dr. Sweeney believes that Solomon's Temple was paid for instead with the rich profits from Israel's commercial sea trade, indicating that it must have been quite extensive.
Ophir is thought by many scholars to be a reference to India, and Flavius Josephus (Ant. 8:164) connected it with (S)upora, forty miles north of Bombay. Tharshish is believed to refer to the lands of the western Mediterranean, including Spain and the west coast of Africa. Since seafaring techniques changed little from the time of Solomon until the mid-fifteenth century, A.D., there is little doubt that Phoenician-Israelite ships were well able to sail the coasts of the Mediterranean and beyond.
There is much evidence of Israelite colonization in early Europe, especially the tribe of Dan. Southwestern England was anciently known as "Dumnoni," or "Danmoni," an area comprising today the British counties of Cornwall and Devon. English historian William Camden stated, "That region, which according to the geographers, is the first of all Britain, and…was in ancient times inhabited by those Britans, whom Solinas called, Danmonii, Ptolomy [called] Damnonii, or (as we find in some other copies), more truly Danmonii. Which name…derived from the ever-continuing mines of tin in this tract, which the Britans call moina." (Britannia, p. 183) This compound word is therefore composed of "moina," a tin mine, and "Dan," the people who mined the tin. So, this most ancient region of England is properly called "Danmoni," meaning "Dan's Tin Mines." That these early inhabitants known as "Dan" were in fact the Biblical tribe by the same name has been established by leading modern scholars such as Cyrus Gordon. If these early colonists had actually been Phoenicians, the region would have been called, not "Danmoni," but "Fenimoni," because the Phoenicians were known as the "Punic" or "Feni" civilization.
Further information on the connection of the Biblical tribe of Dan with Greece, Spain, Britain, and Ireland, was researched in a study, "The Hebrew-Celtic Connection" found on the CBIA website at www.israelite.ca.


Sequoia National Park is a testament to nature's size, beauty, and diversity — huge mountains, rugged foothills, deep canyons, vast caverns, and the world's largest trees. Located in the southern Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California, Sequoia National Park was established on September 25, 1890. The park spans 404,064 acres and encompasses a vertical relief of nearly 13,000 feet. The highest point in the contiguous 48 United States, Mount Whitney, at 14,505 feet above sea level is located within the park.
The park is famous for its giant sequoia trees, including the General Sherman tree, the largest tree on Earth. The General Sherman tree grows in the Giant Forest, which contains five out of the ten largest trees in the world. The Giant Forest is connected by the Generals Highway to Kings Canyon National Park's General Grant Grove, home to the General Grant tree among other giant sequoias. The park's giant sequoia forests are part of 202,430 acres of old-growth forests shared by Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
Many park visitors enter Sequoia National Park through its southern entrance near the town of Three Rivers at Ash Mountain at 1,700 ft. The lower elevations around Ash Mountain contain the only National Park Service-protected California Foothills ecosystem, consisting of blue oak woodlands, foothills chaparral, grasslands, yucca plants, and steep, mild river valleys. The region is also home to abundant wildlife: bobcats, foxes, ground squirrels, rattlesnakes, and mule deer are commonly seen in this area, and more rarely, reclusive mountain lions and the Pacific fisher are seen as well. The last California grizzly was killed in this park in 1922.
At higher elevations in the front country, between 5,500 and 9,000 feet, the landscape becomes montane forest-dominated coniferous belt. Found here are Ponderosa, Jeffrey, sugar, and lodgepole pine trees, as well as abundant white and red fir. Found here too are the giant sequoia trees, the most massive living single-stem trees on earth. Here, visitors often see mule deer, Douglas squirrels, and American black bears, which sometimes break into unattended cars to eat food left by careless visitors.
The vast majority of the park is roadless wilderness; no road crosses the Sierra Nevada within the park's boundaries. 84 percent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is designated wilderness and is accessible only by foot or by horseback.
Sequoia's backcountry offers a vast expanse of high-alpine wonders. Covering the highest-elevation region of the High Sierra, the backcountry includes Mount Whitney on the eastern border of the park, accessible from the Giant Forest via the High Sierra Trail. On a traveler's path along this 35-mile backcountry trail, you'll pass through about 10 miles of montane forest before reaching the backcountry resort of Bearpaw Meadow, just short of the Great Western Divide.
Continuing along the High Sierra Trail over the Great Western Divide via Kaweah Gap, you pass from the Kaweah River Drainage, with its characteristic V-shaped river valleys, and into the Kern River drainage, where an ancient fault line has aided glaciers in the last ice age to create a U-shaped canyon that is almost perfectly straight for nearly 20 miles (32 km). On the floor of this canyon, at least two days hike from the nearest road, is the Kern Canyon hot spring, a popular resting point for weary backpackers. From the floor of Kern Canyon, the trail ascends again over 8,000 ft. to the summit of Mount Whitney. At Mount Whitney, the High Sierra Trail meets with the John Muir Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, which continue northward along the Sierra crest and into the backcountry of Kings Canyon National Park.
Click here to see the Sequoia National Park poster.
One of Colorado's lesser known national parks is Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve. The tallest dunes in North America are the centerpiece in a diverse landscape of grasslands, wetlands, conifer and aspen forests, alpine lakes, and tundra. Here you can experience this diversity through hiking, sand sledding, splashing in Medano Creek, wildlife watching, and more! The park and preserve are always open, so you can also experience night skies and nocturnal wildlife.
The five national parks in Utah draw several million visitors from around the world each year to marvel at surreal scenery and create their own unforgettable experiences. A must-see is the sunrise over the towering depths of the canyons or perhaps at the famed Mesa Arch at Canyonlands National Park. Here you can explore a wilderness of countless canyons and fantastically formed buttes carved by the Colorado River and its tributaries. Rivers divide the park into four districts: Island in the Sky, The Needles, The Maze, and the rivers themselves. These areas share a primitive desert atmosphere, but each offers different opportunities for sightseeing and adventure.


MORE than 30 bags of rubbish were collected as part of the 1st Knaphill Scout Group's January litter pick.
Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, leaders and parents turned out to support what has become an annual event in the Scout Group calendar. As well as the usual litter, the clean-up team also removed a discarded TV, a ride-on kid's car, a shopping trolley and a couple of hub caps from local streets and parks.
"This is the seventh year we have run a New Year litter pick and I am pleased to say generally the streets of Knaphill were less littered than previous years," said Group Scout Leader Tracey Daniell. "All were keen to use their litter pickers and keen to compete to see what unusual rubbish they could find. Several passers-by commented on what a good job the young people were doing and how cheerful and polite they were.


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Muslims Chant to Remove Jesus at Washington's National Cathedral
Source: Israel Today
Author: David Lazarus
It looked like a chilling scene from a Last Days, anti-Christ-takes-over-the-world disaster movie. Hundreds of Muslims take over America's most notable church, prostrate on their prayer rugs as their unified chant echoes out in full volume: "There is only one god, he begets not and I bear witness that Muhammad is His only servant and Apostle."
Only this was not a movie. This was the scene, last Friday, for the first time in history, at the iconic National Cathedral in Washington, where orthodox Muslim clerics were invited to lead an Islamic prayer service. A congregation of hundreds were lead by an Imam in declaring that "god has no son, that Jesus Christ cannot be his son, and that there is no god like Allah."
Only a single middle-age woman jumped up in the middle of the service and shouted, "America was founded on Christian principles. . . . Leave our church alone!" She was escorted quickly out of the church by security guards.
The National Cathedral in Washington, DC has been an extremely important symbol of the Christian roots of the United States. The cathedral was designated by Congress as America's "National House of Prayer." The church has hosted a number of inaugural presidential prayer services, including Franklin Roosevelt and both presidents Bush.
The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, took to Facebook in reaciton to the Muslim prayer service:
"The National Cathedral in Washington, DC–one of the most prominent Episcopal churches in America–will host a Muslim prayer service to Allah. It's sad to see a church open its doors to the worship of anything other than the One True God of the Bible, who sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to earth to save us from our sins. Jesus was clear when He said, 'I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me' (John 14:6)."
As of this writing, 80,000 people had "liked" Graham's post.
The Islamic service at the cathedral was ostensibly intended to promote interfaith dialogue. Its organizers said that they hoped the service would "help correct some Americans' misperceptions of Muslims as extremists and reinforce tolerance among faiths."
However, it is hard to understand how a Christian church opening its sanctuary for Islamic prayers that renonce Jesus Christ contributes to interfaith tolerance. Muslims would never allow a Christian to preach the Gospel in a mosque. Palestinian Muslims continue to ban all Jews and Christians from praying at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It would appear that "interfaith dialogue and tolerance" are just more code words calling for Muslims to rise up and conquer.
The Washington Post reported that the Islamic prayer service was closed to the public because of security concerns. Armed guards checked every person and every bag of those in attendance.
Islam is growing rapidly around the world, and is now the third-largest religion in the United States, behind Christianity and Judaism, with an estimated 2.6 million American Muslim citizens.