Mir Space Station: The Original Space Habitat 

I remember being a kid in Russia in 90s. Economy in ruins. parents working all-day long just to bring food on the table, dirty streets, a lot crime, orphan kids on the streets sniffing glue. Even as a kid I felt how bad it all was. And I remember how me and my family went camping and fishing with friends. At night, when we sat near the fire camp, one of the grown ups told me to look at the sky and showned me a little white dot moving across the sky. "It is Space Station Mir. There are our Cosmonauts there". It probably was just a satellite, but at that moment I thought it was a space station, and it shocked my kids mind. Our, real russian space station in up there with real cosmonauts. It really contrasted with the poverty and gloominess of 90s. One of the brightest memories of my childhood. Needless to say, watching Mir going down in 2001 was heartbreaking.

3:29 Correction: the Buran did make it into space in 1988. However it was an unmanned mission. The Buran demonstrated fully computer-controlled landing capabilities during that mission.

There is something worth mentioning: the US did not fund the Russian space program out of kindness or a newfound generosity. The Soviet Union had hundreds of highly trained and highly experienced rocket scientists and engineers who would be out of a job if the US wouldn't give Russia the money to keep those people employed. And countries like Iran and North Korea (and others the US wouldn't want having access to advanced rocket technology) would be happy to offer them jobs instead. So the US decided it was a prudent investment, leaving them to deal with the devil they knew, and not gamble on what would come next.

Word "Mir" means different things: 1) Peace 2) World 3) Community

3:30 The Buran shuttle did make it to space. It flew a test mission unmanned.

The ISS video is so old, you can still the see ghost of Simon's hair ;)

Mir means "The World", "Peace" and "cooperation"/"community" which most stories miss.

3:39 Buran did go into space. albeit, only once & unmanned.

Buran actually went to space once albeit unmanned but it was nearly a perfect mission. Buran was also much more capable than Space Shuttle. Such a shame that the program got cancelled.

1:55 - Chapter 1 - Beginnings 4:00 - Chapter 2 - Scrambling to launch 5:25 - Chapter 3 - Early MIR 8:55 - Chapter 4 - End of an era 11:30 - Chapter 5 - MIR grows 13:10 - Chapter 6 - Life on MIR 15:25 - Chapter 7 - Accidents 16:55 - Chapter 8 - The end - Chapter 9 - - Chapter 10 -

bonus fact: in Brazil there´s an expression called "things are Russian" (a coisa tá Russa) meaning something is mega hard and nearly impossible to destroy

"I thought drinking in space was not allowed! Epic!" ACCIDENTS

I just want to thank the writer for when talking about the time MIR was built not saying "the height of the Cold War". It's so rare to hear about space programs of the US and USSR and it not be described as such.

I was a 10 year old kid fascinated with space when MIR came down. I still have a newspaper from the day. I was pretty upset by the loss of a legend, but was really excited about the ISS. My classmates were also excited, but not because of the ISS. You see, Taco Bell had placed a giant target out in the ocean and promised everyone a free taco if a piece of MIR hit the target. It didn't happen...

Funny thing about the somewhat relaxed daily schedule aboard the space station is, that back in the days of the Skylab missions, the exact opposite led to morale breakdown and something quite resembling a mutiny, when the crew outright refused to follow orders from the control center due to being overworked and still falling severely behind the plan. It is ever since then I believe that this more relaxed work regime got adopted.

The ISS's parts were delivered by an awesome plane called the "Guppy". I remember because I saw a part of it at the local airport on it's way to Cape Canaveral. It was really neat.

TV miniseries, or 3 part movie epic... Telling the complete (albeit, exaggerated) story of that station. Yeah, I think Simon could pitch that... and he has many writers that could each add a pinch, jokes from the editors, and I'm sure some company would be Legends for grabbing it up. (Btw, Simon should be the narrator of the series/movies)

Another epic story is that in 1986 there was first in history Station to Station flight: Soyuz spacecraft went from Mir to Salut-7 space station

I wonder is the wreckage in the pacific ocean has been traced and if there are still pieces a "treasure hunter" deep sea exploration team could pick up for historical significance.

The book Dragonfly (I haven't finished reading yet) talks about US and Russia working together on Mir. What stood out to me was most NASA astronauts wanted nothing to do with Mir and astronaut office had to scramble to find those willing to do a Mir mission. Russia wanted astronauts to have spaceflight experience before serving on Mir and one astronaut willing to serve on Linenger was fast tracked to a Shuttle mission shortly after becoming an astronaut. There were other issues which one has to ask "did they really do that or this happened?"

Chelomei's TKS (which eventually was recycled as part of Mir) always fascinated me - especially with its heatshield hatch and pressurised compartment in the rear 'FGB' module, it felt more 'spaceship-like', compared to Soyuz. Mind you, I grew up watching Space 1999, with its 'Eagles', so in my mind a spaceship HAD TO have a door/tunnel behind the pilots ;-)

Great video!! Mir was really quite the epic achievement in many ways. As to feeling old - look, I remember when Skylab was a big deal, okay? Hoping that humanity at LEAST gets some kind of station on the Moon before I die, dangit.

I can't wait until there's a space station orbiting the moon, it's called Gateway and it's a vital part of the Artemis progam. The Artemis program will no doubt inspire many children to be astronauts or in other space professions, as the Apollo and space shuttle programs did for current scientists. There's no end to the awesomeness of space. 😂

Another scary thing about the MIR fire was that smoke was everywhere. Smoke didn't rise to the top. In free fall smoke just mixes with all the air, you couldn't crawl under the smoke

"Mir" also means "world", not only "peace"

13:22 Mir is over the Cook Strait in NZ. I can almost see my house (I was living in the Nelson region at the time, but I was probably away working at sea). It reminds me of all the skydiving I did back then in Nelson and Motueka.

"Geriatric danger" sounds... cooler than it has any right to, probably xD

Thanks. Could tell you enjoyed that. More space related content please. There is so much happening with space flight and exploration today.

i saw it go by on its last orbit ...skywatching, looking for some thing ...saw the streak... didn't really know at the time...later ...wow! end of an era of my youth.

The weightlessness part of space and the effects it has on us just goes to show how specifically geared humans are to survive on THIS planet.

Good stuff! Can you do a video on how the GPS system came about?

Simon, what gives? You totally should do a video on Bagger 293 and or Bingham Canyon copper mine! They are both mega in their own way! At the very least they should get side projects videos on them!

“This is your piss, Demetri” 🤣😂

Surely the day the crew got locked out side had to be one of the highlights. The ISS did not follow from MIR, it overlapped. That means that the last day every single human was on the Earth, was the day before MIR was first occupied. This should be a holiday.

Megaprojects with 666k subscribers. November 1st, 2021. Congrats Simon "beelzabub" Whistler

Skylab? Dad launched Humans to Skylab way before Mir had diapers!

It's a bit funny how history is unfolding. Both the US and USSR wanted a station, and a shuttle. The US made a working shuttle, but due to cost overruns, had to cancel the station. The USSR also had cost overruns, but they cancelled the shuttle. So one side had a shuttle, but no station to fly to and the other side had a station but no shuttle to fly to it. Imagine if they had started to cooperate earlier, together having both a shuttle and a station.

Thank you egg of wisdom, for shedding this information on my brain

At 11:35 you can really see how jacked up that lower right panel is getting from space debris hitting it. Such a sad loss, I always regret watching such things, both symbol and an actual home in space for so many years, fall.

Already did a Dyson sphere, so now do an O'Neil cylinder since stuff that hasn't been built yet is fair game.

Thank you

It literally blows my mind how long it takes at least some American public schools to begin upgrading their textbooks. The Soviet Union was dissolved not long after I turned 2 yet when I was in elementary school the books we used still didn't call it Russia, it was still the Soviet Union. I also remember wall maps having it all labeled as the Soviet Union. Same with 9/11. It happened while I was in 7th grade and I went through the rest of middle school and all of highschool without it ever being mentioned in textbooks

I remember when there were bets on where MIR would come down. Taco Bell had a target and promised free tacos if a piece of MIR hit it.

03:30 hang on - it most certainly made it into space - just without a crew.

"The original space habitat" … that would be Salyut, in 1971, with its groundbreaking successor Salyut stations up to Salyut 7.

Does anybody else remember the Taco Bell target set up in the middle of the ocean for when Mir and Skylab came down?

The Buran never got into space, but it got onto Megaprojects and that's just as good.

Simon, do a talk about the water cycle. Rain isn't just water, you know and every drop has been through many (mostly non human) kidneys in the last few hundred million years. It's not just water, there's other nutrient cycles that reuse the same resources over and over. Pick any person in history or prehistoric animal and chances are you have a few atoms in your body that were once in them.

Megaprojects - FALSE , the FIRST American Space Station was the MOL - Manned Operating Lab. it had a Crew of 2 , and used a Gemini B capsule as Transport and Lifeboat. the Russian ALMAZ was similar but Smaller in scope . later on we had the Skylab Project , with a crew of 3 , and used Apollo Command and Service modules. and the Space Shuttle had Space HAB , and Space LAB.

I still wish someone would have bought Mir and turned it into a space hotel. Yes this suggestion was very much floating around the Internet and news back in the late 90s.

Suggestion: Space programs of countries other than the USA and Russia, such as, China. Also, the rise of the steel industry in Pennsylvania, particularly, Pittsburgh.

@7:56 "The Dog Pound Hop" from "Ren & Stimpy" starts playing.... I lost it. Didn't hear that one coming.

The Buran space shuttle "unfortunately never made it into space". Someone hasn't done his homework... yes it did, it completed a single orbit unmanned. Need to be careful, also, with the current Orion Space Capsule, which is neither docking-rated nor man-rated.

"Dimitri, we told you not to eat any asparragus before liftoff!"

You can see that Simon has a lot of fun on this video.

If I recall correctly, there was a single Cosmonaut on the station when the USSR fell. He was stuck up there for so long that he set a record for number of days in space continuously at the time and had to do serious physical rehabilitation when he got back to Earth.

1) I believe the footage of "Mir's reentry" @ 1:35 is actually film of the destruction of Colombia on her fatal reentry. 2) if the above is correct, I think it is at best, insensitive and demeaning to all the Colombia heroes that perished, to use images of. their. deaths. As representation of the end of the Mir mission that, while dramatic, suffered no loss of life. There probably isn't any real footage of Mirs Detroit so alternative images can be fine. There are literally hundreds of films of things reentering the atmosphere that could substitute for Mir. It just shouldn't be of heroes ihn their deaths I do love almost all of your stuff Simon, including this one! Keep up the good work!

8:03 perhaps my favourite fact of all time, is that there are vastly more water molecules in a single glass of water than there are "glasses of water" in the world. This means that if you were to fill a glass of water from the ocean, then pour it back in, completely mix all the water in the world, and then fill the glass again, your new glass-full would contain several molecules that were also in the first glass-full 😲 It also means every drink you have… is Dimitri's piss… and also Ceasar's, and Napoleon's, and Lucy's… 🤯😄

Simon, the Buran DID make it to space...once, unmanned.

damn im sad the writers didn’t include the water that would accumulate behind the wall panelling that was full of visible glittering bacteria colonies bc mir got pretty damn gross in its old age

Sergei Krikalev was a russian cosmonaut who launched just before the collapse of the Soviet Union and was actually stranded on Mir until they figured out how to get him down. Can you imagine being in space and seeing the country that launched you dissolve?

OH MY GOD I had just commented on your Salyut 7 video on another channel that i'd love for you to do one on the Mir! Then the magic happened and here we are. Good on you Simon. Top work old chap!

So early Simon didn’t finish his tea and crumpets yet

Effortless thumbnail design, simple yet elegant.

Great video. I've been hoping you'd do Mir for ages. I think a video on the Salyut stations would also be very interesting, and I don't think anyone can deny they were a megaproject in their own right.

Maybe not for Megaprojects, but if you LOVE these Space Videos as Much as I Do, you Might Want to Do America's ”Skylab” Missions on your Channel Side-Projects!

Thank you verry verrry much for this video!

Finally Thank you Simon

8:02 do you have never ask yourself, what tap water is? i dont know how its done in you location, but its basically cleaned and processed dirty water. Beside... maybe a good topic for a new megaprojects episode?! Waterdistributionsystem are hugh!

You rock Simon! thx for video!

Super megaproject Excellent video 📹 👏 Amazing engineering

Great video Simon and your set look great. :)

The Buran did go into space, on a test launch, achieving its most important mission: allowing Glushko to one-up his late rival Korolev. Ironically it ended up using kerosene, hydrogen, and oxygen, instead of UDMH, N2O4, and petty rivalry.

Nothing breeds friendship and mates like all being in the same thin aluminium tube and drinking each other’s shower urine water while being surrounded by nothing. Need version of throwing stones in glass houses, when that glass is holding in the low pressure air back from oblivion.

For a future Mega Project consider "Rockets that are Reusable". The idea itself goes back to the earliest days where space travel by rockets was envisioned as well documented in Buck Rogers but proved surprisingly hard to accomplish.

Talking about how soviet politicians dictated unrealistic schedules like that isn't the entire history of NASA summarized.

Simon, Before saying this was your favourite episode in a while, i had decided the same thing. Your enjoyment of the subject is clear from the beginning. It's a good thing!:-) 🖖

If you love this space stuff, perhaps the Chinese space station? I keep forgetting that they have their own space station until it pops up in the news every once in a while.

I love this space stuff, too! Do more!

Simon, my man, you need a space channel on youtube

Excellent writing and entertaining delivery. Well done again. I quite enjoy these videos of yours sir.

Dude, this is more suited for Sideprojects. It's just a MIR space station after all 😂

The ISS was also the first space station to be continuously inhabited for 20 years. It’s even older than that.

16:09 Actually Russia and the Soviet union used a nitrogen oxygen mix for their spacecraft atmospheres. Only the us used to use oxygen rich environments.

Buran did two orbits friend and unmanned landing (and launch, and orbit) lol pretty impressive

If you love space stuff do one on spacex’s starship. It’s just a prototype right now, but if it’s even 1/10’th as successful as they hope it would be the biggest leap forward since Apollo. Also, what they have actually achieved down in Texas at this point is a mega project in itself. Look at what they have built in just over 2 years

Can you do a video about nuclear power (especially thorium) and if it’s the best choice to use to combat climate change

You should do a Megaproject on all the Channels that you have!!!🙌💯😂 Now thats a projects!! Didnt realize you had bout 20ish!!👍🙄😩

Drinking in Space is Bad! Russian Cosmonaut : Give me my Vodka!

I could’ve sworn that the title said Mr space station

It looks like Simon is on a borg ship with that green light in the background.

16:45 The scary thing about sealing off the compartment was all the hoses, air ducts, and wires that were run through the hatchways between modules. Very un NASA.

3:30, Mistake, Buran went to space and it come back and it was really good

Leave a Russian in space for 14 months and don't send a drink or two and I guarantee building a still in space will become experiment priority #1.

How perfect 666k subs jist after Halloween, perfect

At 16:10 - Re oxygen enriched atmosphere. The Soviets actually used a standard 80/20 N2/O2 mix at one atmosphere, not an Oxygen enriched atmosphere like Apollo. Still scary though.

Drinking your own urine really changes the phrase “taking the piss” into something totally different

Other than having the wrong space station in the thumbnail, good stuff!

No. No. SALYUT was the first space station. Some would argue that Skylab was the first space habitat, based on size and mission.

Hey Simon You should do a Mega Project on Mega Projects The amount of content you put onto RU-vid is “MEGA “