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| S P E C I A L | Repairing Mir |
Go to Wisconsin for cheese, beer and ... Mir?
Yes, it's a Mir. A real Mir
August 21, 1997
Web posted at: 8:58 p.m. EDT (0058 GMT)From Correspondent Jeff Flock
WISCONSIN DELLS, Wisconsin (CNN) -- In the tourist town of Wisconsin Dells, just down the street from the Dairy Queen, Tommy Town and Shipwreck Lagoon, the space station Mir lies in majestic repose at Tommy Bartlett's Robot World and Exploratory.
It is not to be confused with the Mir orbiting 240 miles from Earth, of course, but this is not some cut-rate replica with stick-on decals. This is the real thing.
CNN's Jeff Flock reports
1 min., 10 sec. VXtreme streaming video
It is 40 feet long, weighs 20 tons and looks like an oversized canister vacuum cleaner without the hoses attached. It towers over visitors when they enter the exhibit, and has been a popular attraction since it opened in May.
"I think people are overwhelmed when they walk in," says Tom Diehl of Tommy Bartlett, Inc. "You stand by the door and they go 'Whoa, what is it?'"
It is one of three core modules ordered for the orbiting space station by the then-Soviet Space Agency. But when it came time for delivery, the agency only had enough rubles for one module.
That is the one now in space, the temporary home to two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut. It is also the scene of many a mishap over the past few months where power failures, crashes with docking vehicles and other mishaps have turned Mir into a real-life episode of "Lost in Space."
But there are no such problems with the module sold to Tommy Bartlett's Robot World and Exploratory for somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million. Though it is not being used for its primary purpose, it is nevertheless a wonder and an education to visitors.
"You don't really get a chance to see this," says a Wisconsin woman. "You hear about it on TV, and what's going on now with the Mir space station. It's kind of neat to see it."
"It is very strange for me," says a visitor from Ukraine. "I cannot understand how the Russians sold it to the United States."
· MIR MAIN PAGE · RELATED SITES · HISTORY ·
· TIMELINE · GALLERY · SOYUZ · CREW · REPAIR MISSION ·
- CNN In-Depth: Space
- Video Almanac: 1996 - Mir and Atlantis dock
- Video Almanac: 1986 - Soviets launch Mir
- Message Board: Repairing Mir
Related stories:
- Mir crew rests ahead of Friday's spacewalk - August 21, 1997
- Mir crew ready for unprecedented repair mission - August 20, 1997
- Mir crew prepares for risky spacewalk - August 20, 1997
Related sites:
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- American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology
- Russian Space Science Internet
- Russian Space Research Insstitute (IKI)
- NASA Shuttle-Mir Web
- Keith's MIR Page
- ISS Phase I - Space Station Mir
- Russian Space Agency
- MIR Space Station - Maximov Online
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.
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