Bits of Mir wont be valuable

Space experts who travelled to the South Pacific to watch Russian space station Mir plunge into the ocean have good news and bad news for anyone thinking about salvaging the wreckage.

The good news is parts of the 143-ton wreck may be floating just below the water’s surface and could wash up on a populated Pacific island.

The bad news is any salvaged junk will likely be next to worthless even to people like James George, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Space Frontier Foundation, one of about 30 space buffs who joined an expedition to Fiji to watch Mir’s fiery descent yesterday.

‘‘A salvaged chunk of Mir... I personally wouldn’t pay a whole lot for it. Mir’s down and it’s old news,’’ George said today.

‘‘You look at the auctions that happen in Los Angeles all the time, of US and Russian space memorabilia, and you’re talking intact items like helmets, valves, gloves and parts of suits. The value is at best a few hundred dollars unless the item is really significant.’’

Russian mission controllers successfully shunted the 15-year-old Mir out of orbit yesterday and sent it on a blazing path into a remote corner of the South Pacific.

Most of the space junk burned up in the atmosphere but bits of Mir survived the fall. Although much of the debris will have sunk, pressurized fuel tanks and other empty containers may have enough buoyancy to float close to the surface, said Rick Citron.

Citron, a Los Angeles lawyer, organized the expedition of space junkies to watch Mir’s descent.

‘Many of them (pressurised tanks) will float, if not on the surface (then) just below the surface and those are the major pieces that survived... and could probably be found with simple sonar gear,’’ he said.

Citron said the titanium balls used for fuel storage probably survived.

But Citron agreed that any salvaged bits of Mir would be unlikely to make their finders rich.

He said one of his clients had tried to sell pieces of the US Skylab space vehicle, which disintegrated over Australia on re-entry.

‘‘He didn’t make anything out of it.’’

Financial consultant and space watcher Robert Hillhouse, 50, of Fullerton, California, said pieces of the Berlin Wall were fetching nothing, ‘‘and everyone’s got a piece.’’

Having fallen in international waters, it was open to anyone to try to recover pieces, said George.

‘‘I personally wouldn’t want to bet my fortune on running a salvage operation to haul that up ... I just don’t think its worth that much,’’ he said.

‘‘Its not like having a chunk of Titanic.’’