The International space station the largest structure in space was the space station " Mir ". The astronauts and scientists of the USSR built the Mir station in orbit from 1986 to 1996. It lasted five years before its orbit had shifted, and she burned up upon reentry into the atmosphere in 2001. As the first modular space station, she parted the forefront of science, but still the living conditions inside were not good. Then the astronauts were more like the pioneers who risked their lives, but continued to go forward and made his mission successful.
By 1998, the “World” has already made its 69 560 th revolution around the Earth. It is of 1.83 billion miles! In addition to great mileage, the World was an ancient computer system. Since then, as in 1986, an explosion occurred at the station, the astronauts had to remove more than 1,500 problems on it. Most were small but some were very difficult. In February 1997, the fire stopped the oxygen generator. Then, in June 1997, the spacecraft carrying supplies to Mir crashed into a solar panel. Many times the team sat in the dark, because there was not enough energy to work on computers, or doing experiments.
Like the pioneers who were headed North on a dog sled, the astronauts of the “World” learned to do everything possible with what they had. For example, astronauts wore a t-shirt, athletic shorts and socks for two weeks without a change! The astronauts wore clothes day and night and even trained in it. Two weeks later, the astronauts just throw dirty things into space, where they burned up in earth's atmosphere.
Life on the station could be completely impossible. Moist air forced to grow mold, and it spoiled food. The crew could not wash well, and infections spread quickly everywhere, especially when rose's new astronauts. After their bodies have long been in zero gravity, the bones of their hips and spines are weaker. Then, when the astronauts returned to Earth, they had a lot of health problems. They had a bad water balance, weak muscles and severe pain throughout the body.
Living conditions at the station were very heavy. The radio was buzzing without a break. In the air hung the smell of gasoline, and the food was served in a sublimated form. Shower often broke, so the team had to just sponge. Even sleeping was hard.
Despite the fact that life at the station was heavy, and the equipment often failed, the astronauts of the “World” was a great success. Like the pioneers, the astronauts have found many useful things that helped the researchers that followed them. And, of course, a great success at the time was that astronauts from Russia and USA, even during the cold war, worked together as friends.
