A great story!<p>> Without waiting for the specialists to arrive, or perhaps not bothering to call them in the first place, the controllers on the next shift decided to reactivate the primary radio transmitter.<p>This reminds me of the failure at Tchernobyl.<p>One thing I admire about Russia is a happy-go-lucky, almost amateur attitude (combined with the more widely discussed melancholy). It seems like a more whimsical version of the UK “muddle through”. Compare that to the extreme professionalism seen in Apollo 13. It’s not really clear which is better, in general.<p>But this story is a good example of where it can be disastrous.
There's a Russian movie about this, called Salyut-7. It's basically the Russian Apollo 13.<p>I won't pretend it's perfect, there's some drama thrown in, but it's well worth watching if you're a space fan. Lots of spaceships and docking and practicalities of living and working in space.<p>The director is apparently flagged to shoot a movie on the real ISS soon, too.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_7_(film)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_7_(film)</a>
Some past threads:<p><i>A little-known Soviet mission to rescue a dead space station (2014)</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20489142" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20489142</a> - July 2019 (36 comments)<p><i>Little-known Soviet mission to rescue a dead space station</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17068017" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17068017</a> - May 2018 (3 comments)<p><i>The little-known Soviet mission to rescue a dead space station (2014)</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11744920" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11744920</a> - May 2016 (10 comments)
Mir was a small space station. Consider its size compared to the space shuttle: <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/sts071-s-072_large.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/st...</a> . Now consider the size of the space shuttle compared to a 747: <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/images/336613main_EC98-44740-2_full.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/images/336613main_E...</a> .<p>Skylab, launched in a single piece was bigger than Mir: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_stations" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_stations</a>
This is a great article and if people are interested there is, in my opinion, an awesome Russian movie adoption. It came out in 2017 so isn’t mentioned in the article.<p>I saw it on amazon prime video a couple years ago and it looks like it is still there.<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Salyut-True-Story-Soviet-Apollo/dp/B0797LG3ST" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Salyut-True-Story-Soviet-Apollo/dp/B0...</a>
More on Salyut 7 from 2 great resources.<p><a href="http://www.astronautix.com/s/salyut7.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.astronautix.com/s/salyut7.html</a><p><a href="http://www.spacefacts.de/salyut/english/salyut-7_6.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.spacefacts.de/salyut/english/salyut-7_6.htm</a>
Saving Salyut-7 is vaguely similar to booting up Skylab, which had problems when entering the orbit.<p>Overall, Soviet manned (and unmanned) space program had its share of dramatic events. Risky first flights, like Voskhod-2... Problems with dockings with first stations, which e.g. cemented Rukavishnikov's name in folklore... Dogged pursuit of Americans in the Moon race with failing N-1, successful LK and bold Zond flights to the Moon with tortoises onboard... How well they are known, depends on the reader.