The 1997 Progress resupply ship collision with Mir station

Imagine trying to parallel park a semi-truck in the dark, but you’ve turned off your backup cameras to save money. That’s essentially how the Mir space station ended up with a gaping hole in its side in 1997.

To cut costs, the crew was ordered to dock a Progress cargo ship manually, ditching the expensive automated radar. They were basically eyeballing a multi-ton projectile through a grainy monitor while it hurtled toward them at orbital speeds.

The ship vanished into the station's shadow, overshot the mark, and crunched into a solar panel before puncturing the hull. It’s the ultimate proof that in the vacuum of space, budget-friendly usually means bring a very large roll of duct tape.

Wait, if there's a hole, didn't the air just suck everyone out instantly?

Hollywood says everyone turns into a human popsicle instantly, but Mir was built like a metal link of sausages. When the Spektr module got punctured, the air didn't vanish from the whole station at once.

The crew scrambled to find the leak, playing a high-stakes game of 'close the door' before the pressure flatlined. They actually had to chop through a mess of cables and hoses just to slam the hatch shut, sacrificing that one room to the vacuum.

It worked, but it left the station permanently crippled. It’s the space equivalent of cutting off a finger to save the arm.

Why on earth were cables running right through the middle of a doorway?

Mir was the orbital equivalent of a house with no internal wiring. To get electricity from the solar panels to life support, they literally ran thick 'umbilical' cables through the open hatches.

It’s like trying to slam your bedroom door during a fire, only to realize you’ve run five extension cords through the frame to power your PC.

The crew used a literal kitchen knife to hack through those lines as the air hissed out. They sealed the leak, but accidentally severed the station's main power, leaving them drifting in the dark.

Did they just sit there suffocating in the dark until the batteries charged?

It was worse than a tomb because the station started tumbling. Without power, the gyroscopes died, and Mir began to slow-roll like a lost battery under a couch.

Since the fans stopped, the exhaled carbon dioxide didn't disperse. It just hovered around their faces in an invisible, suffocating bubble. They had to wave their hands to move the air so they could breathe.

They eventually used the Soyuz lifeboat's thrusters to stop the spin and pointed the solar panels back at the sun. It was like jump-starting a building-sized car while falling.

If the Soyuz was a 'lifeboat,' why didn't they just abandon ship?

Abandoning Mir meant the station was dead. It would have eventually crashed into Earth like a rogue skyscraper, and Russia wasn't ready to lose their only orbital foothold.

Also, undocking from a tumbling station is like jumping off a spinning merry-go-round while it's on fire. If they mistimed the release, the Soyuz could have slammed back into Mir, turning their 'lifeboat' into a metal coffin.

They were stuck in a 'fix it or die' scenario because the alternative was a very expensive fireworks show over the Pacific.