American investors are spending millions to turn the ailing Russian space station Mir into a satellite repair shop, a commercial science lab and a space-travel B&B.
It’s “the world’s greatest renovation project. It’s the 21st century version of the Suez Canal or Eiffel Tower,” said Jeff Manber, whose company, MirCorp, is leasing the mothballed space station.
“We could have space tourists on board immediately. People all over the world are going to get a kick out of this,” he said. “It will be another wonder of the world, like the pyramids.”
A vacation on the orbiting Mir could cost as much as $40 million, with potential astro-travelers required to spend months training for the journey.
“It won’t be cheap to go, but people who have the money will want to pay for a package that’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Manber said.
Mir, which has been in orbit for 14 years, was disabled in June 1997 when an unmanned cargo rocket punctured its hull and caused a near-deadly fire.
The station – which hasn’t been visited since August – has since sprung a leak and was due to be taken out of commission and sent crashing into the Pacific Ocean later this year.
But its death sentence was commuted late last year when 46-year-old venture capitalist Walt Anderson and Rick Tumlinson, president of the nonprofit Space Frontier Foundation, spearheaded a campaign to save it.
“The Mir, which was about to be thrown away, was a huge opportunity,” said Anderson, who made his fortune buying and selling telephone companies after the breakup of AT&T.
“Yes, it’s old, and, yes, it has a few problems. Yet, any old building has that. You don’t tear down an old building because it has a few heating and air-conditioning problems. You renovate it,” Anderson said.
Early this month, MirCorp launched an unmanned rocket from Russia to boost the station’s orbital altitude. The company plans to fly a crew to the station in April to assess renovation costs.
MirCorp is a private corporation made up of American venture capitalists and the privately owned Russian space contractor Energia.
Anderson has contributed $7 million to the MirCorp venture and plans to invest another $14 million. The names of the company’s other American investors are to be announced next month.
“What we’ve got are pragmatic investors who want to clean up the Mir and open it for business for everyone – whether you’re a space tourist, a space researcher or a media company,” said Manber.
Besides making money from space travel, MirCorp plans to have labs on the station available for conducting medical and scientific experiments and for repairing and building satellites.
The company also plans to sell live photographic images of the earth to TV stations and media companies and offer deals to sponsors who want to be associated with renovation of the station.
“It’s a challenge, but we wouldn’t be doing this unless we thought it was possible,” Manber said.
“Our colleagues at Energia have kept the station going since 1986. They tell us they can get it going again and keep it going and we believe them.”