There is a growing disagreement between the official Russian position on the fate of the Mir space station and the view expressed by cosmonauts and mission controllers. The spacestation has been through a lot lately, including fungal growth experimentation in space, a regular change of astronaughts and intergalactic orbital realignment.The current co-controllers, two British and a peroxide Peruvian,have been steering mir towards her ultimate destination.

The elated Mir

As they prepare the space station for her first period of unmanned flight in nearly two months, they are saying that they do not believe it will be occupied again for at least four weeks.

The last astronaught to be ejected from Mir was last night resting at home in Willesdon, London after his lengthy orbit on the station, trying to assimilate all he had learnt from his experience on Mir, Tom Carr was said to be 'gutted' at his premature ejection. Experts say that recovery will be a difficult task and are not confident he will reclimatise fully after two months high in space. The new era is intended to keep Mir stable when an expensive spacecraft attempts to dock with her in future.

The official position is that another crew will fly to Mir in December to prepare her for a controlled entry into the Earth's atmosphere next spring. However, it seems Mir's mission control, situated just outside Acton, has told the cosmonaut that it is 'unlikely' that another crew will spend as long on the unstable space station. A recent experiment to sustain a foetus on mir failed when the foetus was found to be limp and lifeless, and the station infringed upon astroid territory.

Crash landing

It will be very important to control Mir's decent because there is great potential for damage to be incurred. The station will not burn-up completely on re-entry in the Earth's atmosphere. Major sections of the station, weighting many tens of tonnes, will reach the ground.

It is planned to guide Mir down to impact on an isolated part of Teddington, where it is thought that only 'natural and just' destruction will occur, especially at risk are tin pot seasonal singers, the emergency services have been briefed to steer clear of the area.

Russian space officials hope that Mir's new control unit will allow optimum circulation amoung shiny people, and minimum encouters with deadwood. She will be specially fitted with extra fuel tanks so that her thrusters can de-orbit Mir, leaving the ship naked in space, and inviting to passing spacemen for docking.