The persistence of the Orphans of Apollo

The Soviet Union's Mir space station,
deorbited to makeway in its orbital plain for
the International Space Station

The Past and Future of NewSpace
Alan Boyle - CosmicLog / MSNBC

"Orphans of Apollo" chronicles the rise and fall of MirCorp, the venture created to turn Mir into an orbiting commercial paradise, through present-day interviews as well as extraordinary home video shot during Anderson's business dealings.

One sequence of shots shows Anderson and his buddies feasting on take-out pizza and wine and playing Risk while they fly on the millionaire's private jet for a crucial round of talks in Russia. During the year 2000, MirCorp's team spun out grand plans to refurbish the space station as a tourist destination and the setting for a reality-TV show. At one point NBC, one of the partners in the msnbc.com joint venture, had a deal with MirCorp and "Survivor" creator Mark Burnett to use Mir as the centerpiece of a prime-time series.

Thanks to Anderson's millions, MirCorp got their Russian "landlords" to send one more crew up to the space station in mid-2000 and keep the place running. But that was the venture's high point. The grand ambitions of Apollo's orphans ran up against a perfect storm of personality clashes, politics and economics.

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