Letter: Mir: errors at mission control

Mir: errors at

mission control

Sir: The time has come to bring to bear international public opinion on the organisers of the present Mir space mission before it ends in tragedy. A decision needs to be taken at once to bring back the astronauts to Earth, followed by consideration of how best to remove Mir from service.

If anything happens to these men, this will mark the end of international space missions for the foreseeable future, as the present mission organisers will be seen as unreliable collaborators in whom the international community has lost trust.

The human errors in this mission are not in the spacecraft. They are in mission control. They are vanity, complacency and trusting to luck beyond what is practical and sensible.

TERESA RICKARDS

Bury, Lancashire