MIR

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MIR
lyrics © 2000 by Dr. H. Paul Shuch
sung to the tune of "Moscow Nights" (AKA "Midnight in Moscow")
by Mikhail Matusovskij and Visilij Pavlovic Solovev-Sedoj

Click on the speaker icon to hear this melody

Of a Russian space station known as MIR
I would like to sing you a tale.
Though her life was long,
Not unlike my song,
She was doomed to ultimately fail.

Skylab and the Salyut were first in line,
Making microgravity pay.
Through their missions brief,
They gave us belief
In the dream of going up to stay.

Space endurance records were soon to fall.
Men would stay on MIR for a year.
There was much to learn,
But the crews would yearn
To return to the planet they hold dear.

Mother Russia's cosmonauts, most are hams,
And MIR could accommodate them
With two meter gear
Anyone can hear
Back on Earth, on packet or FM.

Come the final days of the Soviet,
Russia had a lab to maintain.
Bureaucratic woes
Were no threat to those
Who would gladly return to space again.

Docking with a Progress was quite routine
Under automatic control,
But the MIR was caught
When a cosmonaut
Was perfecting his yaw and pitch and roll.

Sudden decompression in outer space
Threatening the lives of the crew!
In the face of fear,
Can we save the MIR?
No, I fear her days in space are through.

Attitude control has been compromised --
MIR does a kazatski in space.
Now the crew must try
Hard to rectify
All that's failed, and put things back in place.

Orbiting the planet for fifteen years,
Helping us extend mankind's place,
MIR has shown us how.
We are ready now
To begin to live and work in space.

NASA's station someday will take her place,
But that may take many a year.
As the work proceeds,
We'll defer our needs
For an orbiting lab, and think of MIR!

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